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THE ATHEN^UM PRESS SERIES 

G. L. KITTREDGE AND C. T. WINCHESTER 

GENERAL EDITORS 



Htben^um press Series, 

This series is intended to furnish a 
Hbrary of the best English literature 
from Chaucer to the present time in a 
form adapted to the needs of both the 
student and the general reader. The 
works selected are carefully edited, with 
biographical and critical introductions, 
full explanatory notes, and other neces- 
sary apparatus. 



■Aw :-^-*.r*''-'>iii¥M^ — ^ 




_^_l 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 



/-^ 



Htben^um press Series 



Select Poems 



OF 

SHELLEY 



Edited with Introduction and Notes 



W. J., ALEXANDER 

PKOFESSOR OY ENGLISH IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, TORONTO 



Boston, U.S.A., and London 
GINN & COMPANY, PUJ5LISHERS 

Cde 9ltl)enatttm ^xtm 

1898 






13478 



Entered at Stationers' Hall 



Copyright, 1898 
By GINN & COMPANY 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 






AUG 3 1 1898 








PREFACE 



In accordance with the general plan of the Athenceum 
Press Series, the aim of the present volume is to afford a 
suitable selection of Shelley's Poems for the student and the 
general reader, and to give some help towards the under- 
standing and appreciation of a writer whose spirit and 
whose power are confessedly not always apparent on a 
merely casual perusal. 

The text of the poems is, with a few variations, that of 
Mr. Forman's latest edition of Shelley's poetical works 
in the Aldine Series. The arrangement of the selections 
is as nearly as may be chronological. It has been deemed 
advisable to limit the choice to complete poems; frag- 
mentary pieces and extracts have been excluded, with the 
exception of three passages from Hellas, which lose little 
by separation from their context. 

In a volume of this nature the editor is at every step 
under great obligations to his predecessors, — obligations 
which often cannot be traced and acknowledged. Apart 
from particular cases of indebtedness indicated throughout 
the volume, the editor is conscious of having received great 
assistance from the editions of Mr. Fbrman and of Pro- 
fessor Woodberry, from Professor Dowden's Life of the 



VI PREFACE. 

poet, from the various contributions to Shelley literature of 
Mr. W. M. Rossetti, from the Essays of Mr. Stopford Brooke, 
Mr. Bagehot, and Mr. R. H. Hutton, from Professor Hale's 
annotations to the Adojiais, and from the suggestions of 
Professor Winchester, one of the general editors of the 
Athenceum Press Series. 

Toronto, Sept. 12, 1897. 



CONTENTS, 



PAGE 

INTRODUCTION ^ 

I. Shelley's Life ^"i 

II. Shelley's Works Ixxiii 

POEMS. 

Alastor ^ 

A Summer-Evening Church-Yard .... 25 
Lines ( " The cold earth slept below " ) . . • .26 

To Wordsworth 27 

- Hymn to Intellectual Beauty 27 

On Fanny Godwin .....••• 3° 
Lines ("That time is dead for ever, child ") . • -3^ 

Sonnet : Ozymandias 3^ 

Passage of the Apennines 32 

The Past 32 

Lines written among the Euganean Hills . • 33 

Sonnet ( " Lift not the painted veil ")...• 44 

Song, on a Faded Violet 45 

Stanzas, written in Dejection near Naples . . 46 

Prometheus Unbound 49 

Sonnet: England in 1819 ^5° 

Song to the Men of England ^5^ 

- Ode to the West Wind ^6° 

The Indian Serenade '^3 

Sophia ^^4 



VIU CONTENTS. 

Love's Philosophy 165 

Ode to Heaven 165 

The Sensitive Plant 167 

The Cloud 179 

To A Skylark .......... 181 

Ode to Liberty 185 

Arethusa 195 

To ("I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden") . . . 198 

The Question 198 

Song of Proserpine 200 

Hymn of Apollo 200 

Hymn of Pan 202 

Letter to Maria Gisborne 203 

Ode to Naples . 213 

Good Night 219 

The World's Wanderers 220 

To THE Moon 220 

Time Long Past 221 

Sonnet ( " Ye hasten to the grave ! What seek ye there " ) .221 

Dirge for the Year 222 

Time 223 

To Night 223 

From the Arabic 225 

To Emilia Viviani 226 

Epipsychidion 227 

To { " Music, when soft voices die " ) . . 248 

Song ( " Rarely, rarely, comest thou " ) . . . . 249 

Mutability 251 

Adonais 253 

Sonnet: Political Greatness 274 

The Aziola 275 

A Lament 275 

Remembrance 276 

To-Morrow 277 



CONTENTS. 



IX 



Lines ( " If I walk in Autumn's even " ) 

To ( " One word is too often profaned " ) . 

To { " When passion's trance is overpast " ) 

A- Bridal Song 

Song from Hellas ( " Life may change, but it may fly not " ) 
Chorus from Hellas ( " The young moon has fed " ) 



Final Chorus from Hellas ("The world's 

begins anew " ) 
To Edward Williams .... 
Song ("A widow bird sate mourning") . 
The Magnetic Lady to her Patient 
Lines ( " When the lamp is shattered " ) 
To Jane — The Invitation 
To Jane — The Recollection 
With a Guitar, to Jane .... 
To Jane ( " The keen stars were twinkling " ) 
Lines written in the Bay of Lerici 
Lines ( " We meet not as w-e parted " ) 

A Dirge 

Epitaph 



great age 



277 
278 
278 
279 
280 
280 

281 
283 
285 
285 
287 
288 
290 

293 
296 
297 
299 
300 
300 



NOTES .... 

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 
INDEX OF FIRST LINES 



301 
381 

385 



INTRODUCTION 



The impress of Shelley's character is stamped everywhere 
upon his work. In his case, to an even greater degree than 
usual, some knowledge of the man is necessary for the under- 
standing of his writings. To furnish this knowledge, in as 
far as our narrow limits will permit, is the aim of the follow- 
ing sketch. It seems superfluous, therefore, to occupy space 
in giving the present writer's opinion on those many points 
in Shelley's conduct which have been the subject of contro- 
versy, and upon which such divergent judgments have been 
pronounced. There were passages in Shelley's life from 
boyhood onward which, had he not been a man of genius, 
would incur the unhesitating censure of the world in general. 
He set parental and scholastic authority at defiance ; he was 
guilty of indoctrinating the immature minds of youth with 
religious opinions which their natural guardians held in 
abhorrence ; he tried to convince a younger sister, just 
entering womanhood, that legal marriage was a needless 
form ; he deserted his wife without, as far as is known, any 
grounds which would ordinarily be regarded as adequate, 
and eloped with a girl not yet seventeen years old, — the 
daughter of an intimate friend. Yet Shelley has inspired 
many of his admirers with an enthusiasm which leads them 
to write in terms of unbroken eulogy, not merely of the poet, 
but of the man ; to treat with injustice persons who came 
into collision with him during his lifetime ; and sometimes 
to play fast and loose with the dictates of good sense and 
sound morals. On the other hand, unqualified condemna- 



xii V INTR OD UC TION. 

tion, such as one readily pronounces on a man guilty of 
actions like those specified above, is shown by a thorough 
examination of Shelley's life and character to be as unjustifi- 
able as indiscriminate approval. 

Shelley was, in truth, a man of quite abnormal type. 
With certain qualities he was endowed to an extraordinary 
degree ; others, which belong to the average man, were 
almost totally lacking in him. Owing to his extreme sensi- 
tiveness to certain aspects of life and his comparative blind- 
ness to others, he was not actuated by the same motives as 
other men — or, rather, motives did not have the same rela- 
tive weight with him as with others. He was, further, to an 
unusual degree the creature of impulse ; yet he was not, like 
most creatures of impulse, dominated by ignoble and transi- 
tory aims. His actions, though the outcome of an unchecked 
will, were not sensual or consciously selfish, but directed, as 
far as his insight went, towards the benefiting of his fellows. 
Though justice, kindness, and forbearance were the objects 
of his passionate admiration and pursuit, yet, owing to his 
incapacity for understanding other people and his subjection 
to the impulse of the moment, he continually, both by his 
judgments and his actions, wronged those with whom he 
came in contact. It is difiicult to characterize him without 
overstating or overlooking essential qualities ; hence the 
complex impression of his personality is best rendered 
directly from a record of his life. Such a record should be 
written rather from the point of view of Shelley himself than 
from that of a moralizing critic. A sketch as brief as the 
following can give only a small selection from the biographi- 
cal material available. The selection is determined, not by 
the absolute importance of the facts chosen, but by their 
effectiveness in producing an impression of Shelley's charac- 
ter, and especially of those sides of it which most influenced 
his poetic work. 



INTRODUCTION. XUl 



I. 



Percy Bysshe Shelley was born August 4, 1792, at 
Field Place, near Horsham, in Sussex. He came of gentle 
lineage; the Shelley family had belonged to the squirearchy 
of Sussex for centuries. His father, Timothy Shelley, was 
a county magnate and Whig member of parliament, — a 
puzzle-headed, irritable, not unkindly, man of a common- 
place and narrow type. Shelley's mother was a woman of 
beauty, possessed of greater sense and ability than her hus- 
band, but commonplace, also, without breadth of knowledge 
or sympathy. Sir Bysshe Shelley, the poet's grandfather, 
had revived the fortunes of this branch of the family. In 
early years he had been possessed of great personal attrac- 
tions and of much adroitness and push. He had begun life 
as an adventurer, and laid the foundations of his wealth by 
his two marriages — on each occasion eloping with an heiress. 
As Percy knew him, he was an eccentric, avaricious old man 
living in a cottage in the village of Horsham. The desire 
to accumulate wealth, to found a family, to win social stand- 
ing — such were the ruling motives of Sir Bysshe and his 
son Timothy. 

In Field Place, among the surroundings which belong to 
an English country gentleman, Percy Shelley, the eldest 
child and heir, grew from infancy to boyhood. At the age 
of ten he was sent to a private boarding-school near Brent- 
ford. He was not an ordinary boy, was of a gentle and 
dreamy temperament, and, doubtless, seemed girlish to his 
companions. " He passed among his school fellows," writes 
his cousin and fellow pupil, Thomas Medwin, " as a strange 
and unsocial being ; for when a holiday relieved us from our 
tasks, and the other boys were engaged in such sports as 
the narrow limits of our prison court allowed, Shelley, who 
entered into none of them, would pace backwards and for- 



XIV INTRODUCTION. 

wards — I think I see him now — along the southern wall, 
indulging in various vague and undefined ideas, the chaotic 
elements, if I may say so, of what afterwards produced so 
beautiful a world." His life among other boys could scarcely 
have been very happy, but at school he found at least one 
kindred spirit. Shelley's description of this friend, though 
written in later life, reveals something of the boyish Percy 
himself. 

There was a delicacy and a simplicity in his manners inexpres- 
sibly attractive. . . . The tones of his voice were so soft and 
winning that every word pierced into my heart, and their pathos 
was so deep that in listening to him the tears have involuntarily 
gushed from my eyes. ... I remember in my simplicity writing 
to my mother a long account of his admirable qualities and my own 
devoted attachment. I suppose she thought me out of my wits, 
for she returned no answer to my letter. I remember we used to 
walk the whole play hours up and down by some moss-covered 
palings, pouring out our hearts in youthful talk. We used to 
speak of the ladies with whom we were in love, and I remember 
our usual practice was to confirm each other in the everlasting 
fidelity in which we had bound ourselves towards them and 
towards each other. I recollect thinking my friend exquisitely 
beautiful. Every night when we parted to go to bed we kissed 
each other like children, as we still were. 

In 1804 Shelley went to Eton, where he was even less in 
harmony with his environment than at Brentford. His gen- 
tleness and oddity exposed him to teasing and bullying. " I 
have seen him," writes a school fellow, ''surrounded, hooted, 
baited like a maddened bull, and at this distance of time I 
seem to hear ringing in my ears the cry which Shelley was 
wont to utter in the paroxysms of revengeful anger." " His 
name," says Dowden, " would suddenly be sounded through 
the cloisters, in an instant to be taken up by another and 
another voice, until hundreds joined in the clamor, and the 



INTRODUCTION. xv 

roof would echo and reecho with ' Shelley! Shelley! Shelley! ' 
Then a space would be opened in which, as in a ring or 
alley, the victim must stand and exhibit his torture ; or some 
urchin would dart in behind and by one dexterous push 
scatter at Shelley's feet the books which he held under his 
arm ; or mischievous hands would pluck at his garments ; or 
a hundred fingers would point at him from every side, while 
still the outcry 'Shelley! Shelley!' rang against the walls. 
An access of passion — the desired result — would follow, 
which, declares a witness of these persecutions, ' made his 
eyes flash like a tiger's, his cheeks grow pale as death, his 
limbs quiver.' " He was a rebel against the fagging system, 
and thus, doubtless, deprived himself of the protection of 
elder and better disposed boys. Yet he, too, had pleasures 
and friends at Eton ; he was fond of rambling with a chosen 
companion among the beautiful scenes of the neighborhood, 
such as the churchyard of Stoke Pogis, which is said to 
have inspired Gray's Elegy. In his studies he was not un- 
successful, though he never distinguished himself as an accu- 
rate scholar. His intellectual precocity was manifested in 
his reading of classical authors outside his school work and 
of Godwin and Franklin among English writers. It may have 
been through his studies of Godwin and Lucretius that he 
acquired the name of " Atheist," by which he was known 
among his contemporaries at school. He was certainly a 
propagandist of revolutionary ideas at Eton, and, at least 
during the earlier years of his residence there, was on no 
very good terms either with teachers or taught. In scientific 
studies, which, of course, were not included in the school 
curriculum of those days, he was also interested; he made 
chemical experiments, and possessed an electric battery. 
But from his general character, as well as from references 
to these pursuits in his writings, we gather that he was not 
inspired by a genuinely scientific spirit, but was attracted by 



XVI INTRODUCTION. 

the stimulus which such pursuits afforded to his imagination, 
by his love of mystery, and by the vague possibilities of 
some tremendous discovery. His scientific interests led to 
the forming of a friendship with a certain Doctor Lind, 
of Windsor, whose idealized portrait appears in the Hermit 
of The Revolt of Islam and in Zonaras of Pri7ice Athanase. 
There is a story told by Shelley that once during the holi- 
days he had an attack of fever, and during convalescence 
heard remarks of the servants which showed that his father 
designed to send him to a private madhouse ; in great ter- 
ror the boy despatched a messenger to Doctor Lind, who 
responded to the appeal, saw Mr. Timothy Shelley, and 
induced him to abandon the design. Whatever the basis for 
this story, the idea of malevolent plot against himself must 
have arisen from that tendency to illusions and that deep- 
rooted suspicion of his father which haunted the poet 
throughout his life. 

The isolation and persecutions of Shelley's boyhood were 
the prelude of similar trials in mature life ; and, if we are to 
take literally some of his later poetic utterances, he had 
already embraced those lofty principles of justice, kindness, 
and forbearance which he proclaimed and sought to practice 
in later days : 

Thoughts of great deeds were mine, dear Friend, when first 
The clouds which wrap this world from youth did pass. 
I do remember well the hour which burst 
My spirit's sleep : a fresh May-dawn it was. 
When I walked forth upon the glittering grass. 
And wept, I know not why ; until there rose 
From the near schoolroom voices that, alas ! 
Were but one echo from a world of woes — 
The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes. 

And then I clasped my hands and looked around — 
But none was near to mock my streaming eyes, 



INTR OD UC TION. x vii 

Which poured their warm drops on the sunny ground — 
So, without shame, I spake : "I will be wise, 
And just, and free, and mild, if in me lies 
Such power, for I grow weary to behold 
The selfish and the strong still tyrannize 
Without reproach or check." I then controlled 
My tears, my heart grew calm, and I was meek and bold.^ 

Very early in life Shelley cherished literary ambitions, and 
before leaving school he was an author. Already, in May, 
1809, the greater part of a romance entitled Zastrozzi had 
been written. It was published in the following year. 
Zastrozzi exhibits in full measure the lack of originality, 
truth, and power which we expect in the writings of a boy. 
It is a slavish imitation of the absurdly mysterious arid 
romantic fiction which enjoyed a temporary popularity about 
the beginning of the century. About the same time, prob- 
ably in the winter 1809-10, Shelley and his cousin Medwin 
composed a poem on the Wandering Jew, under the influ- 
ence of a translation of a German work on the same theme. 
It failed to find a publisher. In the autumn of 18 10 Shelley 
and an unknown collaborateur issued a volume of 0?'iginal 
Poetry by Victor and Cazire. The publisher discovered 
that it contained a piece plagiarized from the works of M. 
G. Lewis, and it was in consequence withdrawn from circu- 
lation almost as soon as published. It is quite likely that 
the plagiarist was Shelley's collaborateur, but it is extraordi- 
nary that a poem by Lewis should have escaped Shelley's 
notice. When his attention was drawn to the matter he 
expressed great indignation at the fraud. 

In the autumn of 18 10 Shelley went into residence at 

Oxford. The most important factor in his brief sojourn 

there was the friendship he formed with Thomas Jefferson 

Hogg, his future biographer. In many respects Hogg was 

1 Dedication to The Revolt of Islam. 



xvui INTRODUCTION. 

the antithesis of Shelley. He was gifted with much shrewd- 
ness and worldly wisdom, measured things by utilitarian and 
matter-of-fact standards, and had a tendency to cynicism. 
But he was intellectual and witty, and shared Shelley's love 
of reading and discussion. With a certain contempt for his 
friend's idealism, enthusiasm, and neglect of ordinary aims, 
there was mingled in Hogg a genuine admiration for his 
intellectual power, fine spirit, and unselfish practice. Hogg's 
biography can only be accepted with sonie qualifications ; the 
author's desire to be lively, to make a good story, is often 
prejudicial to accuracy. His lack of sympathy may some- 
what distort his portrait. But, when allowance is made for 
these things, the most vivid and, taken all together, the most 
accurate impression of the young Shelley is to be found in 
his pages. 

Their acquaintance, accidentally made in the dining-hall 
at University College, of which they were both members, 
swiftly ripened into close intimacy. Hogg thus describes 
Shelley's personal appearance at the time : " It was a sum 
of many contradictions. His figure was slight and fragile, 
and yet his bones and joints were large and strong. He was 
tall, but he stooped so much that he seemed of low stature. 
His clothes were expensive and made according to the most 
approved mode of the day ; but they were tumbled, rumpled, 
unbrushed. His gestures were abrupt and sometimes 
violent, occasionally even awkward, yet more frequently 
gentle and graceful. His complexioa was delicate and 
almost feminine, of the purest red and white ; yet he was 
tanned and freckled by exposure to the sun, having passed 
the autumn, as he said, in shooting. His features, his 
whole face, and particularly his head were, in fact, unusually 
small ; yet the last appeared of a remarkable bulk, for his 
hair was long and bushy, and in fits of absence and in the 
agonies (if I may use the word) of anxious thought he often 



INTRODUCTION. XIX 

rubbed it fiercely with his hands or passed his fingers 
quickly through his locks unconsciously, so that it was sin- 
gularly wild and rough. . . . His features were not symmet- 
rical (the mouth, perhaps, excepted), yet was the effect of 
the whole extremely powerful. They breathed an animation, 
a fire, an enthusiasm, a vivid and preternatural intelligence 
that I never met with in any other countenance. Nor was 
the moral expression less beautiful than the intellectual ; for 
there was a softness, a delicacy, a gentleness, and especially 
(though this will surprise many) that air of profound religious 
veneration that characterises the best works and chiefly the 
frescoes (and into these they infused their whole souls) of 
the great masters of Florence and Rome." 

The appearance of his room was not less striking. " Books, 
boots, papers, shoes, philosophical instruments, clothes, 
pistols, linen, crockery, ammunition, and phials innumer- 
able, with money, stockings, prints, crucibles, bags, and 
boxes were scattered on the floor and in every place ; as if 
the young chemist, in order to analyse the mystery of creation, 
had endeavored first to reconstruct the primeval chaos. The 
tables, and especially the carpet, were already stained with 
large spots of various hues, which frequently proclaimed the 
agency of fire. An electrical machine, an air-pump, the gal- 
vanic trough, a solar microscope, and large glass jars and 
receivers were conspicuous amidst the mass of matter. 
Upon the table by his side were some books lying open, 
several letters, a bundle of new pens, and a bottle of Japan 
ink that served as an inkstand ; a piece of deal, lately part 
of the lid of a box, with many chips, and a handsome razor 
that had been used as a knife. There were bottles of soda- 
water, sugar, pieces of lemon, and the traces of an efferves- 
cent beverage. Two piles of books supported the tongs, 
and these upheld a small glass retort above an argand lamp. 
I had not been seated many minutes before the liquor in the 



XX INTR OD UC TION. 

vessel boiled over, adding fresh stains to the table and 
rising in fumes with a disagreeable odor. Shelley snatched 
the glass quickly, and, dashing it in pieces among the ashes 
of the grate, increased the unpleasant and penetrating 
effluvium." 

The two friends had interminable talks about all sorts of 
subjects over the fire or during the long walks which they 
were accustomed to take every afternoon. The intellectual 
stimulus of Oxford in those days was not great ; the univer- 
sity as a whole was sunk in indolence and pleasure-seeking. 
In the regular studies of the place Shelley took but little 
interest ; but, as at Eton, he carried on his own development 
by reading those authors who commended themselves to his 
taste and by the discussion of those questions which he 
deemed most important. " The examination," says Hogg, 
" of a chapter of Locke's Essay Concerning the Human 
Understa7iding w^ould induce him at any moment to quit 
every other pursuit. We read together Hume's Essays and 
some productions of Scotch metaphysicians of inferior 
ability. . . , We read also certain popular French works 
that treat of man, for the most part in a mixed method, 
metaphysically, morally, and politically. Hume's Essays 
were a favorite book with Shelley, and he was always ready 
to put forward in argument the doctrines they uphold." He 
was never weary of reading Plato (in translation in these 
earUer days), especially the Phaedo. " I never beheld eyes," 
continues Hogg, "that devoured the pages more voraciously 
than his ; I am convinced that two-thirds of the period of 
day and night were often employed in reading. It is no 
exaggeration to affirm that out of the twenty-four hours he 
frequently read sixteen. At Oxford his diligence in this 
respect was exemplary, but it greatly increased afterwards." 
As to the impression which Shelley's moral character made 
upon Hogg, a few extracts will suffice. " As his love of 



INTRODUCTION. xxi 

intellectual pursuits was vehement and the vigor of his 
genius almost celestial, so were the purity and sanctity of 
his life most conspicuous." " His speculations were as wild 
as the experience of twenty-one years has shown them to 
be ; but the zealous earnestness for the augmentation of 
knowledge and the glowing philanthropy and boundless 
benevolence that marked them and beamed forth in the 
whole deportment of that extraordinary boy are not less 
astonishing than they would have been if the whole of his 
glorious anticipations had been prophetic ; for these high 
qualities, at least, I have never found a parallel." " I have 
had the happiness to associate with some of the best speci- 
mens of gentlemen ; but, with all due deference for those 
admirable persons (may my candor and my preference be 
pardoned), I can affirm that Shelley was almost the only 
example I have yet found that was never wanting, even in 
the most minute particular, of the infinite and various 
observances of pure, entire, and perfect gentility." "Shelley 
was actually offended, and indeed more indignant than 
would appear to be consistent with the singular mildness of 
his nature, at a coarse and awkward jest, especially if it 
were immodest or uncleanly ; in the latter case his anger 
was unbounded and his uneasiness preeminent." " I never 
could discern in him more than two fixed principles. The 
first was a strong, irrepressible love of liberty, — of liberty 
in the abstract, and somewhat after the manner of ancient 
republics, without reference to the English constitution, 
respecting which he knew little and cared nothing, heeding 
it not at all. The second was an equally ardent love of 
toleration of all opinions, but more especially of religious 
opinions ; of toleration complete, entire, universal, unlimited ; 
and, as a deduction and corollary from which latter princi- 
ple, he felt an intense abhorrence of persecution of every 
kind, public or private." 



xxu INTRODUCTION. 

At Oxford Shelley's literary activity was continued. In 
November, 1810, a volume of poems by Shelley, The Post- 
humous Fragments of Margaret IVkholso7i, Edited by John 
Fitzvictor^ was published. These poems were written origi- 
nally in a serious vein, but, on Hogg's suggestion, a bur- 
lesque atmosphere was thrown about them by their ascription 
to the above-mentioned female, — a mad washerwoman who 
had attempted to stab the king. Early in the following year 
appeared a second romance of the same general character 
as Zastrozzi, written probably at Eton, and entitled St. 
Irvyne. 

About the date of the publication of St. Irvyne^ when 
Shelley was at home spending his Christmas vacation, he 
became involved in various troubles. The latitude of his 
religious opinions came to the notice of his father, who sus- 
pected Hogg of corrupting Percy. In consequence Mr. 
Shelley, who was in London at the time, addressed a letter 
to his son which made the latter imagine himself, with boy- 
ish exaggeration, a victim of intolerance and a martyr for 
the truth. He writes to Hogg : 

My father wrote to me, and I am now surrounded, environed 
by dangers to which compared the devils who besieged St. 
Anthony were all inefficient. They attack nie for my detestable 
principles. I am reckoned an outcast ; yet I defy them and laugh 
at their ineffectual efforts. . . . My father wished to withdraw me 
from college ; I would not consent to it. There lowers a terrific 
tempest ; but I stand, as it were, on a pharos, and smile exult- 
ingly at the beating of the billows below. 

In a subsequent letter he tells how he attempted to 
enlighten his father, who admitted his son's principles, but 
when they were applied, silenced the young reasoner '' with 
an equine argument, in effect with these words : ' I believe 
because I believe.' " " My mother imagines me to be in 
the highroad to Pandemonium ; she fancies I want to make 



INTRODUCTION. xxili 

a deistical coterie of all my little sisters. How laughable ! " 
His cousin, Harriet Grove, to whom he had been engaged, 
also turned against him. Happiness, it seemed to the young 
enthusiast, had vanished forever — and all from the hateful 
spirit of intolerance. 

Here I swear [he writes to Hogg on January 2], and as I 
break my oaths may Infinity, Eternity blast me, here I swear that 
I never will forgive intolerance. It is the only point on which I 
allow myself to encourage revenge ; every moment shall be 
devoted to my object which I can spare ; and let me hope that 
it will not be a blow which spends itself, and leaves the wretch at 
rest — but lasting, long revenge ! I am convinced, too, that it is 
of great disservice to society — that it encourages prejudices 
which strike at the root of the dearest, the tenderest of its ties. 
Oh ! how I wish I were the avenger ! that it were mine to crush 
the demon, to hurl him to his native hell, never to rise again, and 
thus to establish forever perfect and universal toleration. I expect 
to gratify some of this insatiable feeling in poetry. You shall 
see, you shall hear, how it has injured me. She is no longer 
mine ! She abhors me as a skeptic, as what she was before. Oh, 
bigotry ! When I pardon this last, this severest of thy persecu- 
tions, may heaven (if there be wrath in heaven) blast me ! 

Shelley's zeal for toleration showed itself also in matters 
beyond his own personal concerns. After his return to col- 
lege, he gave practical testimony to his sympathy with the 
cause of free speech. He was one of the first subscribers 
to a fund in behalf of an Irish journalist whose attacks on 
the government had led to imprisonment. In connection 
with this matter he addressed a letter to Leigh Hunt, editor 
of The Examiner, the mouthpiece of English radicalism, 
suggesting the formation of an organization of the friends 
of liberty. 

But Shelley's disposition towards revolutionary views had 
its most important immediate outcome in a matter which 



XXIV INTR on UC TION. 

concerned himself. He had written a Uttle pamphlet to 
show that there were no proofs of the existence of a deity. 
This he entitled The Necessity of Atheism ; he added a pref- 
ace, claiming that the desire for truth was the author's only 
motive for publishing, and expressing the hope that any 
reader who might be able to meet the arguments, would do 
so. The pamphlet was advertised for sale, and copies were 
sent to university dignitaries and other prominent personages. 
It was anonymous, but rumor ascribed the authorship to 
Shelley. He was summoned before the college authorities, 
refused either to acknowledge or deny the authorship, and 
was expelled. Hogg, of his own accord, went before the 
authorities to protest against Shelley's condemnation, and 
involved himself in the same penalty. 

On the morning of March the twenty-sixth, 1811, the two 
friends quitted Oxford. They proceeded to London, took 
lodgings together, and for a short time continued their 
walking, talking, and reading, much as before their expul- 
sion. This, however, could not last long ; both were depen- 
dent on their parents, who, it need scarcely be said, did not 
regard their conduct with approval. Shelley's father com- 
manded him to break off all communications with Hogg, to 
return home, and place himself under the care and instruc- 
tion of such a person as his father might select. Shelley 
refused to comply. In a few weeks Hogg had to leave for 
York, where he was to study law, and his companion was 
left in comparative loneliness. Two of Shelley's sisters 
were at school in the suburbs, at Clapham ; there Shelley 
frequently visited them, and, young though they were, 
attempted to indoctrinate them with some of his peculiar 
views. Among their schoolmates was a certain Harriet 
Westbrook, not yet sixteen, and endowed with marked 
personal attractions. She had regular features, an exquisite 
complexion, symmetrical form, and graceful movements. 



INTR OD UC TIOX. xxv 

Her father was a retired coffee-house keeper, well-to-do in 
the world. Her mother seems to have been an incapable 
sort of person ; and an elder sister, Eliza, almost twice Har- 
riet's age, exercised over her the care and influence which 
naturally belong to a mother. Shelley had already, earlier 
in the year, become acquainted with the younger sister, and 
now the acquaintance ripened into intimacy. Harriet did 
not share in the horror with which the othtr girls at Mrs. 
Fenning's school looked upon the atheist, and she was, in 
consequence, exposed to some petty persecutions. Her 
elder sister, also, showed sympathy with Shelley and interest 
in his doctrines, and he became a not infrequent visitor at 
their home in London. It is not improbable that matri- 
monial views in regard to Harriet lay at the bottom of 
Eliza's encouragement of Shelley. " Her father," too, as 
Shelley notices, " is civil to me, very strangely." But as far 
as can be judged, ideas of love and marriage were not con- 
sciously present in Shelley's mind. Harriet was to him an 
interesting disciple, — a young soul to be brought into that 
illumination which he himself enjoyed. 

Meanwhile, through the intervention of a maternal uncle 
and the good offices of the Duke of Norfolk, who was a sort 
of patron and friend to Timothy Shelley, an accommodation 
was effected between father and son. The latter was to 
receive an allowance of ^200 a year, and was left to do as 
he pleased with respect to place of abode. He returned to 
Field Place, but found the surroundings uncongenial. " I 
am a perfect hermit," he says in a letter, " not a being to 
speak with ! I sometimes exchange a word with my mother 
on the subject of the weather, upon which she is irresistibly 
eloquent ; otherwise all is deep silence ! I wander about 
this place, walking all over the grounds, with no particular 
object in view." Again : " It is most true that the mass of 
mankind are Christians only in name ; their religion has no 



XXVI INTR on UC TION: 

reality. . . . Certain members of my family are no more 
Christians than Epicurus himself was ; the discanonisation 
of this saint of theirs is impossible until something more 
worthy of devotion is pointed out ; but where eyes are shut, 
nothing can be seen. They would ask, Are we wrong to 
regard the opinion of the world? what would compensate us 
for the loss of it.'' Good heavens, what a question! Is it 
not to be answered by a word ? So I have little of their 
confidence." His eldest sister Elizabeth, whom he had 
hoped to win over to his peculiar views, and, in his day- 
dreams, had designed for Hogg, cared more for amusements 
and worldly advantage than for truth and philosophy. She 
received with contempt or aversion her brother's teachings 
as to the evils of legal marriage and the folly of substitut- 
ing any merely external tie for the true love that binds 
kindred hearts together. 

As a partial substitute for companionship with a sympa- 
thetic spirit, Shelley maintained a close correspondence, not 
merely with Hogg, but also with a Miss Kitchener, a school- 
mistress whom he had lately met. Miss Hitchener was some 
thirty years old, angular and swarthy, but of advanced views 
and deeply interested in those questions, philosophical and 
political, for which the young enthusiast most cared. She 
seemed to Shelley an ideal spirit, with that complete under- 
standing of his point of view and that perfect sympathy for 
which his heart yearned. Their correspondence treated of 
the widest and profoundest questions, — the existence of 
God, immortality, political and social equality. To Miss 
Eliza Westbrook, also, and her sister he from time to time 
addressed letters, though not finding the former wholly to 
his mind. 

About the beginning of July, Shelley went to Wales to pass 
some weeks with a cousin. One motive for this journey may 
have been the wish to meet the Westbrooks, who intended 



INTR on UC TION. xx vii 

to spend a part of the summer in the same neighborhood. 
But Shelley's strongest desire was for the companionship of 
Hogg ; and, as their intercourse was interdicted by his father, 
he hoped to find, during this absence from home, an oppor- 
tunity for a clandestine visit. Neither the meeting with the 
Westbrooks nor that with Hogg took place. The former 
had already returned to London, and thence came letters 
from Harriet in quick succession : she was persecuted at 
home ; she must return to school where she was wretched ; 
she had no one to love and was useless in the world ; she 
asked if it would be wrong to put an end to her miserable 
life. At length came a letter in which she threw herself on 
Shelley's protection and proposed to fly with him. Shelley 
hastened to London, and, after the delay of a week or two, 
eloped with Harriet to Scotland. In Edinburgh, on August 
28, 181 1, they were married. 

It is evident that this connection with Harriet Westbrook 
was, on Shelley's part, unpremeditated, — the result of cir- 
cumstances, rather than of design. There was certainly no 
strong passion on his side ; he was moved more by the feel- 
ing that he was helping a victim of oppression and by the 
romance of the situation than by the ordinary motives of a 
love-match. In the letters which passed between him and 
Hogg during the weeks which immediately preceded the 
elopement, the question whether legal marriage was or was 
not permissible to the " illuminated," was discussed. Shelley 
was in theory opposed to marriage as one of the pernicious 
forms of oppression imposed and consecrated by society; 
Hogg argued, on practical grounds, in favor of the legal 
tie. To Hogg's arguments Shelley yielded ; although, he 
writes, he does not anticipate being "directly called upon to 
evince his attachment to either theory." "The ties of love 
and honor," he says in a letter to his friend, dated August 
15, "are doubtless of sufficient strength to bind congenial 



xxviii INTRODUCTION. 

souls. . . . Yet the argument of impracticability, and, what 
is even worse, the disproportionate sacrifice which the female 
is called upon to make, — these arguments, which you have 
urged in a manner immediately irresistible, I cannot with- 
stand." The following extract from a letter to Miss Kitch- 
ener, written some two months after the marriage, gives a 
compendious statement of the facts from Shelley's point of 
view, and is in every respect most characteristic of the 
writer. 

I will explain, however, the circumstances which caused my mar- 
riage; these must certainly have caused much conjecture in your mind. 
Some time ago, when my sister was at Mrs. Fenning's school, she con- 
tracted an intimacy with Harriet. At that period I attentively watched 
over my sister, designing, if possible, to add her to the list of the good, 
the disinterested, the free. I desired, therefore, to investigate Harriet's 
character ; for which purpose I called upon her, requested to correspond 
with her, designing that her advancement should keep pace with, and 
possibly accelerate, that of my sister. Her ready and frank acceptance 
of my proposal pleased me ; and, though with ideas the remotest to 
those which have led to this conclusion of our intimacy, I continued to 
correspond with her for some time. The frequency of her letters 
became greater during my stay in Wales. I answered them ; they be- 
came interesting. They contained complaints of the irrational conduct 
of her relatives, and the misery of living where she could love no one. 
Suicide was with her a favorite theme, and her total uselessness was 
urged in its defence. This I admitted, supposing she could prove her 
inutility, and that she was powerless. Her letters became more and 
more gloomy. At length one assumed a tone of such despair as in- 
duced me to quit Wales precipitately. I arrived in London. I was 
shocked at observing the alteration of her looks. little did I divine 
its cause. She had become violently attached to me, and feared that I 
should not return her attachment. Prejudice made the confession 
painful. It was impossible to avoid being much affected; I promised to 
unite my fate with hers. I stayed in London several days, during 
which she recovered her spirits. I had promised, at her bidding, to 
come again to London. They endeavored to compel her to return to 
school where malice and pride embittered every hour. She wrote to me. 
I came to London. I proposed marriage, for the reasons which I have 



INTR OD UC TION. xxix 

given you, and she complied. Blame me if thou wilt, dearest friend, 
for still thou art dearest to me ; yet pity even this error if thou blamest 
me. If Harriet be not, at sixteen, all that you are at a more advanced 
age, assist me to mould a really noble soul into all that can make its 
nobleness useful and lovely. Lovely it is now, or I am the weakest 
slave to error. 

On hearing of his son's marriage, Mr. Timothy Shelley 
stopped his allowance, and Mr. Westbrook also refused sup- 
plies. Hence great pecuniary embarrassments for the young 
couple ; but, apart from these, the weeks in Edinburgh passed 
pleasantly enough. Hogg took advantage of a holiday to 
join them, and the pleasant intercourse of the two friends 
was renewed. Harriet, with the pliancy of youth, adapted 
herself to her surroundings ; read much, especially aloud ; 
adopted her husband's language, and, so far as she under- 
stood them, his ideas, also ; and talked much of virtue and 
perfectibility. When, of necessity, Hogg's visit terminated, 
the Shelleys accompanied him to York, and were there pres- 
ently joined by Eliza Westbrook. Eliza, who had naturally 
great influence over her younger sister, and who did not 
altogether approve of the ways of the household, took the 
reins into her own hands, and effected a revolution in the 
habits of the little circle. An event even more revolutionary 
was a sudden rupture with Hogg. During a brief absence 
of her husband and before the arrival of her sister, Hogg, as 
we gather from Shelley's letters, was guilty of gross miscon- 
duct towards Harriet. Shelley writes to Miss Hitchener in 
reference to Hogg : " We walked to the fields beyond York. 
I desired to know fully the account of this affair. I heard 
It fro??i him^ and I believe he was sincere. All that I can 
recollect of that terrible day was that. I pardoned him, — 
fully, freely pardoned him ; that I would still be a friend to 
him, and hoped soon to convince him how lovely virtue was; 
that his crime, not himself, was the object of my detestation ; 



XXX INTR on UC TION. 

that I value a human being, not for what it has been, but 
for what it is ; that I hoped the time would come when he 
would regard this horrible error with as much disgust as I 
did. He said little ; he was pale, terror-struck, remorseful." 
It is extraordinary that twelve months after an offence of so 
signal a character as that indicated in this letter, Shelley re- 
sumed his friendly relations with Hogg ; that the latter was 
received, apparently on the old footing, not merely by 
Shelley, but by Harriet and Eliza ; and that he was set down 
for a legacy of ;^2ooo in Shelley's will. 

His companionship with Hogg thus suddenly interrupted, 
his relations to Harriet being rather those of a protector and 
teacher than of an intellectual equal, Shelley turned with 
renewed enthusiasm to Miss Hitchener, in whom he seemed 
to find the possibilities of friendship of the truest and 
highest character. He writes to her: "I could have borne 
to die, to die eternally with my once-loved friend [Hogg]. 
I could coolly have reasoned to the conclusions of reason ; I 
could have unhesitatingly submitted. Earth seemed to be 
enough for our intercourse ; on earth its bounds appeared to 
be stated, as the event hath dreadfully proved. But with 
you — your friendship seems to have generated a passion to 
which fifty such fleeting, inadequate existences as these ap- 
pear to be but a drop in the bucket, too trivial for account. 
With you, I cannot submit to perish with the flower of the 
field ; I cannot consent that the same shroud which shall 
moulder around these perishing frames shall enwrap the 
vital spirit which hath produced, sanctified — may I say 
eternized 2 — a friendship such as ours." Again: "I look 
upon you as a mighty mind. I anticipate the era of reform 
with more eagerness as I picture to myself you the barrier 
between violence and renovation." He is eager that she 
should become a member of his household. "How Harriet 
and her sister long to see you! and how / long to see you, 



INTR OD UC TION. xxxi 

never to part with you again." "The union of our minds will 
be more efficacious than a state of separate endeavor. I 
shall excite you to action, you will excite me to just specula- 
tion. ... I should possibly gain the advantage in the 
exchange of qualities ; but my powers are such as would 
augment yours. I perceive in you the embryon of a mighty 
intellect which may one day enlighten thousands. How de- 
sirous ought I not to be, if I conceive that the one spark 
which glimmers through mine should kindle a blaze by 
which nations may rejoice ! . . . Come, come, and share 
with us the noblest success or the most glorious martyrdom." 

The breach with Hogg was speedily followed by removal 
from York to Keswick. Thither Shelley was attracted by the 
presence of Southey, whose poetry he admired. But Southey 
was, at this date, as conservative as Shelley was radical, and 
between the two there was little community of sentiment. 
At first, when they met, Shelley, whilst strenuously protesting 
against Southey's views and considering him "far from 
being a man of great reasoning powers," yet regarded him 
with sincere admiration : " He is a man of virtue. He will 
never belie what he thinks ; his professions are in compati- 
bility with his practice." But in a month or two Shelley 
writes : " He is a man who inay be amiable in his private 
character, stained and false as is his public one. He may 
be amiable, but, if he is, my feelings are liars." 

Money affairs continued to harass the poet. His grand- 
father. Sir Bysshe Shelley, was anxious to entail his large 
accumulated property ; but to effect this, it was needful that 
his grandson should consent. Through his uncle. Captain 
Pilfold, Shelley heard that an income of ^2000 a year would 
be settled on him, provided he would consent to the entail. 
The spirit in which this suggestion was received — a sug- 
gestion to do something which society regarded as eminently 
proper — is very characteristic. "I have since heard from 



xxxu INTRODUCTION. 

Captain P. His letter contains the account of a meditated 
proposal, on the part of my father and grandfather, to make 
my income immediately larger than the former's, in case I 
will consent to entail the estate on my eldest son, and in de- 
fault of issue on my brother. Silly dotards ! that I will for- 
swear my principles in consideration of ^2000 a year? that 
the good will I could thus purchase or the ill will I could 
thus overbear, would recompense me for the loss of self- 
esteem, of conscious rectitude ? And with what face can 
they make me a proposal so insultingly hateful ? Dare one 
of them propose such a condition to my face — to the face 
of any virtuous man — and not sink into nothing at his dis- 
dain? That I should entail ^120,000 of command over 
labour, of power to remit this, to employ it for beneficent 
purposes, on one whom I know not, — who might, instead of 
being the benefactor of mankind, be its bane, or use this for 
the worst purposes, which the real delegates of my chance- 
given property might convert into a most useful instrument 
of benevolence ! No ! this you will not suspect me of." After 
many delays and much worry, Mr. Westbrook agreed to give 
the young people an allowance of ^200, and Timothy 
Shelley bestowed the same sum, taking, in his usual fashion, 
all graciousness from the gift by telling his son that it was 
given to prevent him from cheating strangers. 

In the beginning of the year 181 2 Shelley introduced 
himself by letter to the philosopher Godwin, whose writings 
exercised a profound influence on the poet's thought, and 
whose daughter he was one day to marry. In answer to 
Godwin's request for specific details, Shelley, in a second 
letter, sent the following account of himself : 

I am the son of a man of fortune in Sussex. The habits of 
thinking of my father and myself never coincided. Passive obedi- 
ence was inculcated and enforced in my childhood. I was re- 
quired to love because it was my duty to love ; it is scarcely 



INTRODUCTION. xxxm 

necessary to remark that coercion obviated its own intention. 1 
was haunted with a passion for the wildest and most extravagant 
romances. Ancient books of chemistry and magic were perused 
with an enthusiasm of wonder ahnost amounting to belief. My 
sentiments were unrestrained by anything within me; external im- 
pediments were numerous and strongly applied ; their effect was 
merely temporary. 

From a reader, I became a writer of romances ; before the age 
of seventeen I had published two, St. Irvyne and Zastrozzi, 
each of which, though quite uncharacteristic of me as I am now, 
yet serves to mark the state of my mind at the period of their 
composition. I shall desire them to be sent to you ; do not, how- 
ever, consider this as any obligation to yourself to misapply your 
valuable time. 

It is now a period of more than two years since first I saw your 
inestimable book of Political Justice; it opened to my mind fresh 
and more extensive views ; it materially influenced my character, 
and I rose from its perusal a wiser and a better man. I was no 
longer the votary of romance; till then I had existed in an ideal 
world — now I found that in this universe of ours was enough to 
excite the interest of the heart, enough to employ the discussions 
of reason ; I beheld, in short, that I had duties to perform. Con- 
ceive the effect which the Political Justice would have upon a 
mind before zealous of its independence and participating some- 
what singularly in a peculiar susceptibility. 

My age is now nineteen; at the period to which I allude I was 
at Eton. No sooner had I formed the principles which I now pro- 
fess than I was anxious to disseminate their benefits. This was 
done without the slightest caution. I was twice expelled, but re- 
called by the interference of my father. I went to Oxford. Oxonian 
society was insipid to me, uncongenial to my habits of thinking. I 
could not descend to common life ; the sublime interests of poetry, 
lofty and exalted achievements, the proselytism of the world, the 
equalization of its inhabitants were to me the soul -of my soul. You 
can probably form an idea of the contrast exhibited to my charac- 
ter by those with whom I was surrounded. Classical reading and 
poetical writing employed me during my residence at Oxford. 



xxxiv INTRODUCTION. 

In the meantime I became, in the popular sense of the word 
" God," an atheist. I printed a pamphlet, avowing my opinion and 
its occasion. I distributed this anonymously to men of thought 
and learning, wishing that reason should decide on the case at 
issue ; it was never my intention to deny it. Mr. Coplestone, at 
Oxford, among others, had the pamphlet ; he showed it to the 
Master and the Fellows of University College, and /was sent for. I 
was informed that in case I denied the publication no more would 
be said. I refused and was expelled. 

It will be necessary, in order to elucidate this part of my history, 
to inform you that I am lieir by entail to an estate of ^6000 per 
annum. My principles have induced me to regard the law of 
primogeniture an evil of primary magnitude. My father's notions 
of family honour are incoincident with my knowledge of public 
good. I will never sacrifice the latter to any consideration. 
My father has ever regarded me as a blot, a defilement of his 
honour. He wished to induce me by poverty to accept of some 
commission in a distant regiment, and in the interim of my ab- 
sence to prosecute the pamphlet, that a process of outlawry 
might make the estate, on his death, devolve on my younger 
brother. These are the leading points in the history of the man 
before you. Others exist, but I have thought proper to make 
some selection ; not that it is my design to conceal or extenuate 
any part, but that I should by their enumeration quite outstep the 
bounds of modesty. Now it is for you to judge whether, by per- 
mitting me to cultivate your friendship, you are exhibiting your- 
self more really useful than by the pursuance of those avocations 
of which the time spent in allowing this cultivation would deprive 
you. I am now earnestly pursuing studious habits. I am writing 
"An Enquiry into the causes of the failure of the French Revolu- 
tion to benefit mankind." My plan is that of resolving to lose no 
opportunity to disseminate truth and happiness. 

I am married to a woman whose views are similar to my own. 
To you, as the regulator and former of my mind, I must ever look 
with real respect and veneration. 

Commenting on this in his Life of Shelley, Hogg says : 
" Shelley's letters to William Godwin must be received with 



INTR on UC TION. xxx v 

caution ; the young poet saw events through the spectacles 
of his pregnant and prurient fancy, and not as they really 
were. He was altogether incapable of rendering an account 
of any transaction whatsoever according to the strict and 
precise truth, and the bare, naked realities of actual life; 
not through an addiction to falsehood, which he cordially 
detested, but because he was the creature, the unsuspecting 
and unresisting victim, of his irresistible imagination." 
Hogg proceeds to point out examples of this tendency in 
the letter quoted. Regarding the statement: "I was in- 
formed that in case I denied the publication no more would 
be said," Hogg says, "No such offer was made . . . but, 
musing on the affair, as he was wont, he dreamed that the 
proposal had been declined by him, and thus he had the 
gratification of believing that he was more a martyr than he 
really was." Hogg notes other misstatements: "He never 
published anything controversial at Eton ; he was never ex- 
pelled. . . . No offer of a commission in the army was 
ever made to Bysshe ; it is only in a dream that the prose 
cution, outlawry, and devolution of the estate could find a 
place." The same tendency to the imaginative amplification 
of facts is illustrated in the account which Shelley gave to 
Peacock of his expulsion. According to this account, "his 
expulsion was a matter of great form and solemnity; there 
was a sort of public assembly, before which he pleaded his 
own cause, in a long oration, in the course of which he 
called on the illustrious spirits who had shed glory on those 
walls to look down on their degenerate successors." 

Various literary plans engaged Shelley's attention during 
the months which followed his marriage — most of them not, 
at this time, realized. He was eager to contribute some 
practical help towards the improvement of humanity. The 
agitation in Ireland on behalf of "Catholic emancipation" 
seemed to afford an opportunity, and he prepared an ad- 



XXX VI IN TROD UC TION. 

dress to the Catholics of Ireland. The address, he says to 
Godwin, 

consists of the benevolent and tolerant deductions of philosophy 
reduced into the simplest language, and such as those who by 
their uneducated poverty are most susceptible of evil impressions 
from Catholicism may clearly comprehend. I know it can do no 
harm; it cannot excite rebelhon, as its main principle is to trust 
the success of a cause to the energy of its truth. It cannot "widen 
the breach between the kingdoms," as it attempts to convey to the 
vulgar mind sentiments of universal philanthropy ; and, whatever 
impressions it may produce, they can be no others but those of 
peace and harmony ; it owns no religion but benevolence, no 
cause but virtue, no party but the world. I shall devote myself 
with unremitting zeal, as far as the uncertain state of health will 
permit, towards forwarding the great ends of virtue and happiness 
in Ireland, regarding, as I do, the present state of that country's 
affairs as an opportunity which if I, being thus disengaged, per- 
mit to pass unoccupied, I am unworthy the character which I 
have assumed. 

In the desire, then, to take some active part in forwarding 
the progress of humanity, Shelley, accompanied by his wife 
and Miss Westbrook, left Keswick for Dublin, where he 
arrived on February 12, 18 12. Whilst sympathizing with the 
movement for Catholic emancipation and the repeal of the 
union, he regarded these as intrinsically matters of small 
moment, except in so far as they were initial steps towards 
a far wider movement which should include not Ireland 
merely, but the world, and should culminate in the abolition 
of all government and of all class distinctions. In harmony 
with this view, his Address is not really political; it does not 
consider what are the immediate measures especially adapted 
to the situation of Ireland ; it is an exhortation to tolerance, 
sobriety, wisdom, and kindliness. In its writer's opinion, 
political reform was to be attained through the reform of 



INTRODUCTION. xxxvii 

individuals. What Shelley urged was that each Irishman 
should set about reforming himself. In the Address^ the 
main object of touching upon emancipation and repeal 
appears to be that the author may thereby gain the ear of 
the reader for higher and broader themes. 

The pamphlet was printed in the cheapest style ; the price 
was five pence ; it was also distributed gratis by the author. 
"For two days," he writes to Miss Hitchener, "I have 
omitted writing to you, but each day has been filled up with 
the employment of disseminating the doctrines of philan- 
thropy and freedom. I have already sent four hundred of 
my little pamphlets into the world, and they have excited a 
sensation of wonder in Dublin ; eleven hundred yet remain 
for distribution. Copies have been sent to sixty public 
houses. No prosecution is yet attempted. I do not see 
how it can be. Congratulate me, my friend, for everything 
proceeds well. I could not expect more rapid success." 
Again : " I send a man out every day to distribute copies, 
with instructions how and where to give them. ... I stand 
on the balcony of our window and watch till I see a man 
7i)ho looks likely ; I throw a book to him." The tone of 
Shelley's letter may be compared with that of Harriet, who 
also writes to Miss Hitchener : " I am sure you would 
laugh were you to see us give the pamphlets. We throw 
them out of the window and give them to men we pass 
in the streets. For myself, I am ready to die of laughter 
when it is done, and Percy looks so grave. Yesterday he 
put one into a woman's hood of a cloak ; she knew nothing 
of it, and we passed her. I could hardly get on, my muscles 
were so irritated." 

A second pamphlet was printed, proposing the formation 
of an association whose immediate object should be Catholic 
emancipation, but whose ultimate aim was to be the destruc- 
tion of all grievances, political and moral. Shelley also 



xxxvill INTRODUCTION. 

spoke at a great public meeting in which O'Connell and 
other leaders took a prominent part. But his visionary 
expectations of reforming the Irish or of solving the Irish 
question were, of course, destined to disappointment. In 
not even the slightest degree did he produce the effects 
which he had anticipated ; and he abandoned his attempt 
even more speedily than he had undertaken it. He writes : 
"The association proceeds slowly, and I fear will not be 
established. Prejudices are so violent in contradiction to 
my principles, that more hate me as a freethinker than love 
me as a votary of freedom." He was further discouraged 
by Godwin's disapproval of his premature interference in 
practical politics ; and after a seven weeks' stay in Ireland 
set sail for England on April 4th. 

The twelve months which followed formed a period of 
wanderings hither and thither. Political questions continued 
to occupy a large part of his attention, and the outspoken 
radicalism of some of his printed pamphlets, especially of 
A Declaration of Rights, which he purposed to distribute 
among the peasantry, led to his being put under surveil- 
lance by the authorities. In the village of Lynmouth, on 
the coast of Devon, he was accustomed, in company with 
Miss Hitchener (who had now joined the household) to 
launch upon the sea boxes fitted with masts and sails con- 
taining copies of his pamphlets. Bottles were used for the 
same purpose, and even fire-balloons were sent skyward to 
spread his ideas for the amelioration of the world. He 
employed a servant, Dan Healy, to post up copies of the 
Declaration of Rights in the neighboring town of Barnstaple. 
Healy was arrested, in consequence, and imprisoned for six 
months, Shelley doing all in his power to alleviate the hap- 
less victim's fate. Later, Shelley took up his abode in the 
little Welsh town of Tremadoc, where he became deeply 
interested in a work which was being carried on by a gentle- 



INTRODUCTION. xxxix 

man of the neighborhood, — the reclaiming of a large tract 
of land from the sea. This appealed to Shelley as a noble 
and beneficent undertaking ; it was suffering from lack of 
funds ; he subscribed ^loo, and threw himself with ardor 
into the work of interesting others. In pursuance of this 
object he went to London in October, 1812, accompanied 
by the other members of the family. This visit was notable 
because the poet, for the first time, met Godwin ; hence- 
forward there was frequent intercourse between them. 
Mary Godwin, now a girl of fifteen, was absent during the 
greater part of Shelley's stay in London, and he may not 
have seen her. Friendly relations were renewed with Hogg, 
who was now studying law in London. Here, too. Miss 
Kitchener received her conge. This lady, whom he had 
idealized as the pattern of all that is highest in woman, had 
been resident with the Shelleys since July. At first all 
had gone well ; but it was inevitable that misunderstandings 
should grow up between a person so situated and one or all of 
the group, Shelley, Harriet, and Eliza. By and by, we find 
them speaking of her as an unendurable incubus. To be 
rid of her, Shelley, in consideration of the fact that she had 
been induced to give up her school in order to join their 
circle, promised her an annuity of ^100 ; we do not know 
for how long. He writes to Hogg in December of this 
year : " I pay it with a heavy heart and an unwilling hand ; 
but it must be so. She was deprived by our misjudging 
haste of a situation where she was going on smoothly ; and 
now she says that her reputation is gone, her health ruined, 
her peace of mind destroyed by my barbarity ; a complete 
victim to all the woes, mental and bodily, that heroine ever 
suffered ! This is not all fact ; but certainly she is embar- 
rassed and poor, and we being in some degree the cause, 
we ought to obviate it." It is characteristic that, from ideal- 
izing the lady and ascribing to her all imaginable graces and 



xl INTR ODUC TION. 

powers, he passes to the other extreme, and writes ; " She 
is a woman of desperate views and dreadful passions, but 
of cool and undeviating revenge." 

About the middle of November Shelley returned to Trema- 
doc, and there exhausted himself in efforts on behalf of the 
embankment. He was saddened by the condition of the 
neighboring poor. It was a winter of much distress among 
the working people, and Shelley was indefatigable in his efforts 
on their behalf, — visiting them and spending his income re- 
lieving their wants. He was busy, as always, with writing and 
reading. He studied with avidity French philosophy, espe- 
cially Holbach's Systhne de la Nature; he read history, to 
which he had an innate aversion, because Godwin urged it. 
Among his own writings the most important was a long nar- 
rative and philosophical poem. Queen Mab, which was not, 
however, printed until the spring of 1813, and then privately. 

The residence of the Shelleys at Tremadoc was brought 
to an end by an extraordinary occurrence, which is described 
in the following extract from one of Mrs. Shelley's letters. 

On Friday night, the 26th of February, we retired to bed 
between ten and eleven o'clock. We had been in bed about half 
an hour when Mr. S. heard a noise proceeding from one of the 
parlours. He immediately went downstairs with two pistols, 
which he had loaded that night, expecting to have occasion for 
them. He went into the billiard room, when he heard footsteps 
retreating ; he followed into another little room, which was called 
an office. He there saw a man in the act of quitting the room 
through a glass window which opens into the shrubbery. The 
man fired at Mr. S., which he avoided. Bysshe then fired, but it 
flashed in the pan. The man then knocked Bysshe down, and 
they struggled on the ground. Bysshe then fired his second pistol, 
which he thought wounded him in the shoulder, as he uttered a 
shriek and got up, when he said these words : " By God, I will be 
revenged ! I will murder your wife ; I will ravish your sister ! 
By God, I will be revenged ! " He then fled — as we hoped for 



INTRODUCTION. ' xli 

the night. Our servants were not gone to bed, but were just 
going, when the horrible affair happened. This was about eleven 
o'clock. We all assembled in the parlour, where we remained for 
two hours. Mr. S. then advised us to retire, thinking it impossible 
that he should make a second attack. We left Bysshe and our 
manservant, who had only arrived that day, and who knew nothing 
of the house, to sit up. I had been in bed three hours when I 
heard a pistol go off. I immediately ran downstairs, when I per- 
ceived that Bysshe's flannel gown had been shot through, and the 
window-curtain. Bysshe had sent Daniel to see what hour it was, 
when he heard a noise at the window. He went there, and a man 
thrust his arm through the glass and fired at him. Thank Heaven ! 
the ball went through his gown and he remained unhurt. Mr. S. 
happened to stand sideways ; had he stood fronting, the ball must 
have killed him. Bysshe fired his pistol, but it would not go off ; 
he then aimed a blow at him with an old sword which we found 
in the house. The assassin attempted to get the sword from him, 
and just as he was pulling it away, Dan rushed into the room, 
when he made his escape. 

This was at four in the morning. It had been a most dreadful 
night ; the wind was as loud as thunder, and the rain descended 
in torrents. Nothing has been heard of him ; and we have every 
reason to believe it was no stranger, as there is a man of the name 
of Leeson, who the next morning that it happened went and told 
the shopkeepers of Tremadoc that it was a tale of Mr. Shelley's 
to impose upon them, that he might leave the country without 
paying his bills. This they believed, and none of them attempted 
to do anything towards his discovery. 

On the day after this Shelley addressed the following letter 
to his friend Hookham, the publisher : 
My Dear Sir, 

I have just escaped an atrocious assassination. Oh ! send me 
the £^o if you have it.^ You will perhaps hear of me no more. 

friend, Percy Shelley. 

1 Referring to ;,^20 which he had sent, a little before, as a subscrip- 
tion for the benefit of Leigh Hunt. 



xlii INTR OD UC TION. 

\_Postcript by Harriet Shelley ^^ 

Mr. Shelley is so dreadfully nervous to-day from having been 
up all night that I am afraid what he has written will alarm you 
very much. We intend to leave this place as soon as possible, as 
our lives are not safe so long as we remain. It is no common 
robber we dread, but a person who is actuated by revenge, and 
who threatens my life and my sister's as well. If you can send 
us the money, it will greatly add to our comfort. 

Sir, I remain your sincere friend, 

H. Shelley. 

A person w^ho was a neighbor of the Shelleys at this 
time, writing in i860, states that Shelley further asserted 
that he saw a ghost or devil when he looked from the 
window on this occasion, and that Shelley set fire to the 
wood to destroy the apparition. Hogg states that " persons 
acquainted with the localities and with the circumstances, 
and who carefully investigated the matter, were unanimously 
of opinion that no such attack was ever made." On the 
other hand, there are sufficient indications that there was no 
intentional fraud on Shelley's part. It should be remem- 
bered that, in addition to possessing a peculiar tempera- 
ment, Shelley was at times in the habit of taking laudanum 
to excess. Many of the details mentioned in Harriet's letter 
must have had their origin in the poet's excited imagination ; 
but it is just possible that there was some substratum of fact. 
Peacock, who knew Shelley well, considers that this was one 
of the cases of semi-delusion to which, in his opinion, his 
friend was subject. In his Memoirs of Shelley^ he illustrates 
this tendency by the following narrative : " In the early sum- 
mer of 18 16 the spirit of restlessness again came over him, 
and resulted in a second visit to the Continent. The change 
of scene was preceded, as more than once before, by a mys- 
terious communication from a person seen only by himself. 



INTRODUCTION. xliii 

warning him of immediate personal perils to be incurred by 
him if he did not instantly depart. I was alone at Bishops- 
gate with him and Mrs. Shelley when the visitation alluded 
to occurred." Peacock was sceptical as to the visit ; where- 
upon Shelley said, " You know Williams of Tremadoc ? It 
was he who was here to-day. He came to tell me of a plot 
laid by my father and uncle to entrap me and lock me up. 
He was in great haste and could not stop a minute, and I 
walked with him to Egham." Peacock remained unconvinced, 
and adduced some facts which showed that it was highly im- 
probable that Shelley had walked to Egham. To this the latter 
replied, '■'- It is very hard on a man who has devoted his life 
to the pursuit of truth, who has made great sacrifices and 
incurred great sufferings for it, to be treated as a visionary. 
If I do not know that I saw Williams, how do I know that 
I see you ? " Finally, "Shelley stated that Williams was stay- 
ing at the Turk's Head Coffee-house in London ; and if 
Peacock would walk thither on the following day he would 
find that things were as Shelley asserted. They started out 
the next morning ; but before going far Shelley, suddenly 
turning round, exclaimed, " I do not think we shall find 
Williams at the Turk's Head ; " and proposed a walk in 
another direction. Peacock heard nothing more of the 
mysterious visit for some days, when Shelley said to him, 
"I have some news from Williams, a letter and an enclosure; 
I cannot show you the letter ; I will show you the enclo- 
sure. It is a diamond necklace." Peacock objected that 
the necklace would prove nothing as to Williams's alleged 
visit. '-'Then," answered Shelley, "if you will not believe 
me, I must submit to your incredulity." " I had," continues 
Peacock, " on one or two previous occasions, argued with 
him against similar semi-delusions, and I believe if they had 
always been received with similar scepticism they would not 
have been so often repeated. ... I call them semi-delusions 



xliv INTKODUCriON. 

because, for the most part, they had their basis in his firm 
behef that his father and uncle had designs upon his Uberty. 
On this basis his imagination buiU a fabric of romance, and 
when he presented it as substantive fact, and it was found 
to contain more or less of inconsistency, he felt his self- 
esteem interested in maintaining it by accumulated circum- 
stances, which severally vanished under the touch of 
investigation, like Williams's location at the Turk's Head 
Coffee-house. I must add that in the expression of these 
differences there was not a shadow of anger. They were 
discussed with freedom and calmness, with the good temper 
and good feeling which never forsook him in conversations 
with his friends. There was an evident anxiety for acqui- 
escence, but a quiet and gentle toleration of dissent. A 
personal discussion, however interesting to himself, was 
carried on with the same calmness as if it related to the 
most abstract question in metaphysics." 

In April, 1813, Shelley took lodgings in London. There 
he had now several intimate friends : Hogg, the Godwins, 
Peacock the poet and novelist, whose acquaintance he had 
recently made, Leigh Plunt, and others. Hogg again affords 
a series of lively pictures of the Shelleys and their method 
of living. Harriet was bright, blooming, and placid as ever, 
and still addicted to reading aloud. Owing to the multitude 
of books, their sitting-room presented a scene of confusion 
which recalled Shelley's bachelor apartments in Oxford. 
Meals came at irregular hours. Throughout life the poet 
was very simple in his diet and neglectful of regular meals. 
*' When he felt hungry," writes Hogg of Shelley in 1813, 
" he would dash into the first baker's shop, buy a loaf, and 
rush out again, bearing it under his arm ; and he strode 
onwards in his rapid course, breaking off pieces of bread 
and rapidly swallowing them." He eschewed spirituous 
liquors and drank tea or water ; both he and Harriet were 



INTR OD UC TION. xl v 

vegetarians at this time. But Shelley was riot fanatical in 
this respect ; when away from home he ate what came in his 
way, and did not refuse the weaker sorts of wine. Peacock 
ascribes Shelley's ill-health largely to vegetarianism and 
irregularity in eating. In his sleeping he was not less 
eccentric, inclined to be drowsy in the evenings, and never 
so wakeful as when the rest of the world is in the habit 
of taking repose. As to dress, Hogg says that he never 
remembers to have seen Shelley in a greatcoat, even in the 
coldest weather. He wore his waistcoat much, or entirely, 
open ; his throat was bare, the collar of his shirt unbuttoned ; 
he wore a hat reluctantly in town, but in fields or gardens 
had no other covering for his head than his long, wild locks. 
" He took strange caprices, unfounded frights and dislikes, 
vain apprehensions and panic terrors, and therefore he 
absented himself from formal and sacred engagements. He 
was unconscious and oblivious of times, places, persons, and 
seasons ; and, falling into some poetic vision, some day- 
dream, he quickly and completely forgot all that he had 
repeatedly and solemnly promised or ran away after some 
object of imaginary urgency and importance which suddenly 
came into his head, setting off in vain pursuit of it, he knew 
not whither." 

In June, 1813, a daughter, lanthe, was born. This event, 
which should have bound husband and wife more closely 
together, marks the beginnings of estrangement. We have 
seen the quixotic fashion in which Shelley married. The 
marriage turned out, at first, more happily than could have 
been expected. Harriet had beauty and amiability ; she 
adopted, though in a somewhat childish fashion no doubt, 
the views of her husband ; she employed his phraseology. 
Shelley's love for his young wife grew ; his letters and poems 
written while in Devonshire and Wales witness to the happi- 
ness of their union. But the poet's eccentricities were such. 



xlvi INTRODUCTION. 

as to put a strain on the most appreciative affection ; and 
Harriet was not specially adapted, in character and intellect, 
to comprehend him. On the other side, the time was sure 
to. come when Shelley would feel with exaggerated sensitive- 
ness the difference between the real person and the ideal 
which he had conceived. Harriet was essentially common- 
place, without extraordinary spiritual or mental endowments. 
As she grew to full maturity, as the pliancy and docility of 
girlhood passed away, she doubtless developed tastes and 
opinions little in harmony with her husband's unconven- 
tional views. Her patience must have been tried by his 
unpractical aims and by his neglect of those things which 
society about her deemed important. In 1813 Shelley 
made a purchase of plate and set up a carriage — certainly 
not of his own impulse. To intensify any divergencies of 
thought and feeling between husband and wife, there were 
the continued presence and influence of Eliza Westbrook. 
However she may have dissembled in the early days of their 
acquaintance, she had no natural interest or sympathy for 
Shelley's peculiar ways and opinions. She was not at all 
literary or intellectual in her tastes ; her aims were common- 
place ; her character, mature and strong ; her influence over 
her sister, great. Shelley now cordially detested his sister- 
in-law, and his dislike was intensified when he saw her in 
chief charge of the little lanthe. Peacock says : " I have 
often thought that if Harriet had nursed her own child [con- 
trary to the father's wishes, a wet-nurse was employed], and 
if this sister had not lived with them, the link of their married 
love would not have been so readily broken." 

The sense of disparity between himself and his wife may 
have been quickened by the congenial female society which 
he now enjoyed among some new friends, — the Newtons 
and Boinvilles. The circle into which he was thus intro- 
duced was composed of persons of an enthusiastic and 



INTR OD UC TION. xl vii 

somewhat eccentric type. Mr. Newton was a strong vege- 
tarian ; to animal food and the drinking of undistilled water 
he ascribed most of the ills of humanity ; he saw, too, pro- 
found meanings in the signs of the zodiac. His wife and 
Mrs. Boinville were sisters. To the latter Shelley was 
especially drawn. Recalling in 1819 the time of which we 
are now speaking, he wrote : " I could not help considering 
Mrs. Boinville, when I knew her, as the most admirable 
specimen of a human being I had ever seen. Nothing 
earthly ever appeared to me more perfect than her character 
and manners." She was an enthusiast for liberty, full of 
sensibility and intensity, of gracious and refined manners. 
Under her teaching and that of her married daughter, 
Cornelia Turner, Shelley began the study of Italian poetry. 
To the cynical and common-sense Hogg and Peacock, the 
absurdities of this circle were more apparent than its 
charms. " The greater part of her [Mrs. Boinville's] 
associates," says Hogg, "were odious. I generally found 
there two or three sentimental young butchers, an eminently 
philosophical tinker, and several very unsophisticated medi- 
cal practitioners, or medical students, all of low origin and 
vulgar and offensive manners. They sighed, turned up their 
eyes, retailed philosophy, such as it was, and swore by Wil- 
liam Godwin and Political Justice.^'' During the summer 
of 18 13 Shelley was much in the society of these people, 
having rented a cottage at Bracknell, where the Boinvilles 
were spending the summer months. 

From Bracknell, Shelley, on the invitation of his mother, 
paid a clandestine visit to Field Place while his father was 
absent. There he met a young officer. Captain Kennedy, 
whose impressions of the poet are interesting : " His eyes 
were most expressive, his complexion beautifully fair, his 
features exquisitely fine ; his hair was dark, and no par- 
ticular attention td its arrangement was manifest. In per- 



xl viii INTRO D UC TION. 

son he wa's slender and gentlemanlike, but inclined to stoop ; 
his g^'it Was decidedly not military. The general appearance 
indicated great delicacy of constitution. One would pro- 
nounce of him that he was different from other men. There 
was an earnestness in his manner and such perfect gentle- 
ness of breeding and freedom from everything artificial as 
charmed every one. I never met a man who so immediately 
won upon me. . . . He reasoned and spoke like a perfect 
gentleman, and treated my arguments, boy as I was (I had 
lately completed my sixteenth year), with as much con- 
sideration and respect as if I had been his equal in ability 
and attainment." Shelley told Captain Kennedy that he 
owed everything to Godwin, "from whose book. Political 
Justice^ he had derived all that was valuable in knowledge 
and virtue." 

In the autumn of the same year, Shelley, in company with 
Harriet, Eliza, and Peacock, made a tour through the Lake 
country to Scotland. Under Peacock's influence he plunged 
deep into classical literature. The chief literary product of 
the year was a dialogue entitled A Refutation of Deis???, which 
exhibits a great advance both in style and thought upon 
his earlier prose writings. 

The year 1814 brought matters between Shelley and his 
Harriet to a crisis. The divergence in views and practice 
between husband and wife hnd probably been gradually 
widening. From Peacock's account, we gather that the 
latter had begun to laugh at Shelley's enthusiasms and 
at some of his friends. Hogg says that after the birth 
of her child she relinquished reading aloud. " Neither did 
she read much to herself ; her studies, which had been so 
constant and exemplary, dwindled away to nothing, and 
Bysshe had ceased to express any interest in them or to 
urge her, as of old, to devote herself to the cultivation of 
her mind. When I called upon her she proposed a walk, if 



INTRODUCTION. xlix 

the weather was fine, instead of the vigorous and continuous 
readings of previous years. The walk commonly conducted 
us to some fashionable bonnet shop." And then there was 
Miss Westbrook. Shelley writes to Hogg, under date of 
March i6, 1814: "EUza is still with us — not here! — but 
will be with me when the infinite malice of destiny forces 
me to depart [from the Boinville's, where he had been stay- 
ing]. I am now little inclined to contest this point. I cer- 
tainly hate her with all my heart and soul. It is a sight 
which awakens an inexpressible sensation of disgust and 
horror to see her caress my poor little lanthe, in whom I 
may hereafter find the consolation of sympathy. I some- 
times feel faint with the fatigue of checking the overflowings 
of my unbounded abhorrence for this miserable wretch." 
Whatever may have been the state of his feelings, he cer- 
tainly appears, in the spring of 18 14, to have had no idea of 
the step which he was to take in two or three months, — 
that of abandoning his marital relations with Harriet. This 
may be inferred, for example, from the fact that towards the 
end of March he, a second time, went through the ceremony 
of marriage with her. Professor Dowden suggests that the 
cause of this act may have been some doubts cast upon the 
validity of the Scotch rite in the course of negotiations with 
money-lenders in which he was at this time engaged. Dur- 
ing the early part of the following summer Harriet was for 
a somewhat long period absent from her husband. The 
latter was, meanwhile, engaged in helping Godwin out of 
money difficulties, in which that sage was continually in- 
volved; and was in consequence repeatedly at Godwin's 
house. It was now that Mary Godwin first attracted his 
attenti6n. She was in her seventeenth year, " with shapely 
golden head, a face very pale and pure, great forehead, 
earnest hazel eyes, and an expression at once of sensibility 
and firmness about her delicately curved lips." Her father 



1 INTRODUCTION. 

describes her at fifteen as " singularly bold, somewhat imperi- 
ous, and active in mind ; her desire of knowledge is great 
and her perseverance in everything she undertakes almost 
invincible." Between Shelley and her, a friendship sprang 
up, which quickly developed into mutual passion. Early in 
June, Shelley and Hogg called at Godwin's house. Godwin 
did not appear; but presently, Hogg narrates, "the door was 
partially and softly opened. A thrilling voice called 
' Shelley ! ' A thrilling voice answered ' Mary ! ' And he 
darted out of the room like an arrow from the bow of the 
far-shooting king. A very young female, fair and fair- 
haired, pale indeed, and with a piercing look, wearing a 
frock of tartan, an unusual dress in London at that time, 
had called him out of the room. He was absent a very 
short time, — a minute or two, — and then returned. . . . 'Who 
was that, pray.?' I asked; 'a daughter.?' 'Yes.' 'A 
daughter of William Godwin } ' ' The daughter of William 
and Mary.' ^ This was the first time that I beheld a very 
distinguished lady, of whom I have much to say hereafter." 
A month later, Harriet, who was still absent, became alarmed 
at the cessation, during four days, of Shelley's letters. She 
wrote to Hookham, the publisher, a friend of Shelley ; he in 
turn communicated with Shelley and Godwin, and the sus- 
picions of the latter seem to have been aroused. In response 
to a letter from Shelley, Harriet returned to London, July 
14th. Shelley proposed a separation, and Harriet had a fit 
of illness in consequence. About this time occurred an 
interview between Shelley and Peacock, of which the latter 

1 That is, Mary W ollstonecraf t, the writer, the vindicator of the 
rights of women, and Godwin's first wife. The Godwin household 
was curiously complicated; besides Mary, there were an elder daughter 
of Mary Wollstonecraf t, by an American named Imlay, commonly known 
as Fanny Godwin; Jane Clairmont (usually called Claire) and her 
brother Charles, children of the second Mrs. Godwin by a former mar- 
riage ; as well as children of Godwin and his second wife. 



INTR OD UC TION. ll 

gives the following account : " Nothing that I ever read in 
tale or history could present a more striking image of sudden, 
irresistible, uncontrollable passion than that under which I 
found him laboring when, at his request, I went up from 
the country to call upon him in London. Between his old 
feelings towards Harriet, from whom he was not then sepa- 
rated, and his new passion for Mary, he showed in his looks, 
in his gestures, in his speech, the state of mind ' suffering, 
like a little kingdom, the nature of an insurrection.' His 
eyes were bloodshot, his hair and dress disordered. He 
caught up a bottle of laudanum and said : ' I never part 
from this.' He added, 'I am always repeating to myself 
your lines from Sophocles : 

Man's happiest lot is not to be, 

And when we tread life's thorny steep. 

Most blest are they who, earliest free. 
Descend to death's eternal sleep.' 

Again he said more calmly : ' Every one who knows me 
must know that the partner of my life should be one who 
can feel poetry and understand philosophy. Harriet is a 
noble animal, but she can do neither.' I said : ' It always 
appeared to me that you were very fond of Harriet' With- 
out affirming or denying this, he answered : ' But you did 
not know how I hated her sister.'"^ 

1 Shelley subsequently believed that, before the separation, Harriet 
had been guilty of such heinous misconduct as would amply justify his 
abandonment of her, even in the judgment of those who hold most 
strongly the inviolability of the marriage bond. (See Dowden's Life, I, 
pp. 425-428.) Professor Dowden further maintains that Shelley believed 
this at the time of his elopement, and that it was a factor in his conduct 
towards his wife. Existing evidence on the point is not absolutely con- 
clusive ; but, in the present writer's opinion, the evidence unmistakably 
points to the fact that no such idea with regard to Harriet was present 
in his mind when he deserted her. It was developed after the catas- 
trophe, and was almost certainly not warranted by facts. 



lii INTRODUCTION. 

On July 28, unknown to Godwin and his wife, Shelley 
and Mary, accompanied by Jane Clairmont, set out for 
the Continent. According to Shelley's conviction, the obli- 
gations of marriage were no longer binding when love had 
ceased. Similar views he may have pointed out to Mary 
in the writings both of her father and of her mother. That 
Mary was, both by intellect and character, better suited 
to be Shelley's wife than was Harriet, cannot be doubted. 
Their union seems to have been very happy in its earlier 
years ; and to the end genuine affection and esteem bound 
them together. But in course of time insufficiencies in 
Mary disclosed themselves to Shelley. Constancy in love, 
as his writings abundantly show, was no virtue in his eyes ; 
from time to time, he thought he had discovered in the women 
he met incarnations of the feminine ideal; and Mary was 
not unnaturally jealous. Epipsychidion and other later 
poems, as well as Trelawny's Records, testify that he suffered 
under the sense of her imperfect sympathy. She was a 
woman of force and very considerable mental endowments, 
and had opinions of her own which did not always coincide 
with those of her husband. Among other things, she 
regarded the judgment of the world with more reverence 
than became the wife of the poet, and was anxious to mingle 
with it. " Poor Mary," said Shelley to Trelawny, " hers is 
a sad fate. She can't bear solitude, nor I society — the 
quick coupled with the dead." 

After some stay in Paris the three travellers began, on 
foot, a tour through France to Switzerland. An account of 
it is given in 27ie History of a Six Weeks Tour, published 
by Shelley in 18 17. Before leaving England, he had made 
provision for the payment of an allowance to Harriet. The 
following letter, written by him soon after the beginning of 
the tour, reveals his extraordinary way of viewing the situa- 
tion and his utter incapacity for comprehending the very 
different feelings of another in regard to the same facts : 



INTRODUCTION. liii 

Troyes, 120 miles from Paris, on the way to Switzerland, 

August 13, 1 814. 
My Dearest Harriet, 

I write to you from this detestable town. I write to show that 
I do not forget you ; I write to urge you to come to Switzerland, 
where you will at least find one firm and constant friend, to whom 
your interests will be always dear — by whom your feelings will 
never wilfully be injured. From none can you expect this but me 
— all else are either unfeeling or selfish, or have beloved friends 
of their own, as Mrs. Boinville, to whom their attention and affec- 
tion is confined. . . . [Here follows a matter-of-fact account of 
the journey.] You shall know our adventures more detailed if I 
do not hear at Neufchatel that I am soon to have the pleasure of 
communicating with you in person, and of welcoming you to some 
sweet retreat I will procure for you among the mountains, I have 
written to Peacock to superintend your money affairs ; he is expen- 
sive, inconsiderate, and cold, but surely not utterly perfidious and 
unfriendly and unmindful of our kindness to him ; besides, interest 
will secure his attention to these things. I wish you to bring with 
you the two deeds which Tahourdin has to prepare for you, as 
also a copy of the settlement. Do not part with any of your 
money. But what shall be done about the books? You can 
consult on the spot. With love to my sweet little I an the. 

Ever affectionately yours, 

S. 

The travellers did not remain in Switzerland, but sailed down 
the Rhine, and arrived in England on September 13th. 

The remainder of the year 18 14 was filled with embarrass- 
ments connected with money matters. Shelley had not only 
his own debts upon his shoulders, but also those of Godwitf; 
the latter, while refusing to pardon or have any direct inter- 
course with Shelley and Mary, condescended to receive pecun- 
iary aid through lawyers. Shelley was in continual hiding 
from the bailiffs and separated from Mary; hence much 
unhappiness and the pouring out of fervent love in multitudi- 
nous notes. He continued to maintain communications with 



li V INTK OD UC TION. 

Harriet, who evidently hoped that the ahenation was only 
temporary. In December she gave birth to a son. The 
death of Sir Bysshe Shelley in the beginning of 1815 made 
a great change for the better in the poet's pecuniary condi- 
tion. It was Sir Bysshe's desire that the property should be 
entailed ; but only ^80,000 of the whole fortune of ;^2oo,ooo 
was thus settled, and even this entail did not extend beyond 
Percy's life. Accordingly, at his father's death, Shelley 
would be complete master of this ^80,000. To prevent 
this result. Sir Bysshe in his will made provision that Percy, 
should he consent to prolong this entail and also agree to 
the entail of the unsettled estates, was, upon the death of 
his father, to enjoy all the rentals and also the income from 
the large amount of personal property; on the other hand, 
should Percy not consent, then he was to receive nothing 
except that of which his grandfather could not deprive him, 
the reversion of the entailed estates. The poet was, in 
principle, opposed to entailing property, and had no desire 
for great wealth ; what he did wish for, was an immediate 
competence which would leave him perfectly free. His 
father. Sir Timothy, was anxious that Percy's younger 
brother John should be the heir, and was willing to buy his 
elder son's interest in the reversion. The grandfather's 
will, however, put legal difficulties in the way of such an 
arrangement, and the negotiations dragged on interminably. 
It is sufficient to say that in June, 1815, Sir Timothy 
advanced money to pay his son's debts ; and during the 
remainder of his life Percy received an income of ^1,000 a 
year. He immediately sent Harriet ;{^2 0o to discharge her 
debts, and gave directions that she should henceforth be 
paid ;^2oo per annum. Mr. Westbrook allowed her a simi- 
lar sum. 

The excitement and anxiety of the year told unfavorably 
upoQ Shelley's health ; in the spring an eminent physician 



INTR OD UC TION. 1 V 

pronounced him to be rapidly dying of consumption. The 
summer was spent in wanderings to and fro. In autumn 
Shelley and Mary took a furnished house at Bishopsgate, on 
the borders of Windsor Forest. It was here that Shelley 
wrote Alastor, Hitherto, though poetry had always engaged 
his attention, his main interests and work had rather been 
philosophical than poetical. Henceforward this relation is 
reversed, and he produces a continuous series of poems of 
a far higher character than anything he had previously 
written. 

There was a disturbing factor in the even tenor of his life 
at Bishopsgate, — Godwin and Godwin's debts. One thou- 
sand pounds which Shelley had given him in the previous 
spring were already exhausted, and creditors still harassed 
the philosopher for money. Godwin, in turn, harassed 
Shelley, whilst denouncing him in bitter terms. The combi- 
nation of meanness, arrogance, and self-righteousness which 
Godwin exhibits in his correspondence even now arouses 
the gall of the reader. Shelley's letters, on the other hand, 
are in the highest degree creditable to both head and heart. 
Their clearness and business-like character are utterly at 
variance with the usual conception of the poet; and they 
exhibit a self-contained patience and persistent effort to do 
the best for Godwin, combined with dignity and, at times, 
with pathos. On March i6 he writes : 

In my judgment, neither I nor your daughter nor her offspring 
ought to receive the treatment which we encounter on every side. 
It has perpetually appeared to me to be your especial duty to see 
that, so far as mankind value your good opinion, we were justly 
dealt by, and that a young family, innocent and benevolent and 
united, should not be confounded with prostitutes and seducers. 
My astonishment, and, I will confess, when I have been treated 
with most harshness and cruelty by you^ my indignation has been 
extreme, that, knowing as you do my nature, any consideration 



Ivi INTRODUCTION. 

should have prevailed on you to be thus harsh and cruel. I 
lamented also over my ruined hopes of all that your genius once 
taught me to expect from your virtue, when I found that for your- 
self, your family, and your creditors, you would submit to that 
communication with me which you once rejected and abhorred, 
and which no pity for my poverty and sufferings, assumed will- 
ingly for you, could avail to extort. Uo not talk of forgiveness 
again to me, for my blood boils in my veins, and my gall rises 
against all that bears the human form when I think of what I, 
their benefactor and ardent lover, have endured of enmity and 
contempt from you and from all mankind. 

To this Godwin answered in his lofty and unrelenting vein, 
and Shelley rejoined : 

The hopes which I had conceived of receiving from you the 
treatment and consideration which I esteem to be justly due to 
me were destroyed by your letter dated the 5th. The feelings 
occasioned by this discovery were so bitter and so excruciating 
that I am resolved for the future to stifle all those expectations 
which my sanguine temper too readily erects on the slightest re- 
laxation of the contempt and the neglect in the midst of which I live. 
I must appear the reverse of what I really am, haughty and hard, 
if I am not to see myself and all that I love trampled upon and 
outraged. Pardon me, I do entreat you, if, pursued by the con- 
viction that where my true character is most entirely known I 
there meet with the most systematic injustice, I have expressed 
myself with violence. Overlook a fault caused by your own 
equivocal politeness, and I will offend no more. We will confine 
our communications to business. 

In May, 18 16, Shelley, accompanied by Mary and Miss 
Clairmont, made a second journey to Switzerland, and 
rented a cottage on the shore of the Lake of Geneva. In 
the neighboring villa lived Byron, and the two households 
were much together. Shelley had a profound admiration 
for Byron's genius ; of his morals and principles he did not 



INTRODUCTION. Ivii 

approve. Together, he and Byron circumnavigated the lake. 
In no amusement did Shelley take more delight than in 
boating ; water had a special fascination for him ; in his 
poetry he loves to follow the course of a river, and dwells 
with peculiar fondness on scenery reflected in the water. 
There was a kindred but more childish pursuit in which he 
delighted to indulge. "He had a passion," says Peacock, 
"for sailing paper boats. . . . The best spot he had ever 
found for it was a large pool of transparent water on a 
heath above Bracknell, with determined borders free from 
weeds, which admitted launching the miniature craft on the 
windward and running round to receive it on the leeward 
side. On the Serpentine he would sometimes launch a 
boat constructed with more than usual care and freighted 
with half-pence. He delighted to do this in presence of 
boys, who would run round to meet it, and when it landed 
in safety, and the boys scrambled for the prize, he had diffi- 
culty in restraining himself from shouting as loudly as they 
did." 

Enjoyable though Shelley's visit to Switzerland was, he 
soon yearned for his native land. " My present intention," 
he writes, "is to return to England and to make that most 
excellent of nations my perpetual resting place." Accord- 
ingly, at the end of September, the Shelleys returned, and whilst 
seeking for a suitable house took temporary lodgings at Bath. 
It would appear that when they reached England, Harriet 
was no longer at her father's house, and Shelley's efforts to 
discover her were futile. In the middle of December, he 
suddenly learned that her body had been found in the 
Serpentine. There she had drowned herself a month 
before. Whatever may have been the immediate' causes of 
this deed, it cannot be doubted that Shelley's desertion of 
her was a remote antecedent. And, though through life he 
continued to believe that his action towards her was justi- 



Iviii INTRODUCTION. 

fiable, her suicide was at the time a terrible shock and 
continued to haunt him with horror. 

Shelley's two children, lanthe and Charles, were in the 
hands of their maternal grandfather and aunt, who refused 
to surrender them. The consequence was a suit in Chan- 
cery, which dragged itself out for many months, and caused 
Shelley wearing anxieties during its continuance, and bitter 
pain by its result. On the grounds that Shelley had published 
immoral views with regard to marriage in Queen Mab, and 
had to some extent carried them out in practice, the Lord 
Chancellor, Eldon, decided that the latter was not a proper 
person to have the control of his children. Accordingly, it 
was decreed that they should be educated under the super- 
vision of the court and by persons of whom the court 
approved. Shelley was permitted to nominate these per- 
sons, subject to the Chancellor's approval ; but was not 
allowed to see his children more than twelve times a year, 
and then only in presence of their guardians. He was, 
therefore, virtually to have no influence in their upbring- 
ing, and they were to be instructed in those orthodox views in 
religious and social matters of which he utterly disapproved. 
His indignation found vent in his poem To the Lord Chan- 
cellor: 

I curse thee by a parent's outraged love, 
By hopes long cherished and too lately lost, 

By gentle feelings thou couldst never prove. 
By griefs which thy stern nature never crossed ; 



By those unpracticed accents of young speech, 
Which he who is a father sought to frame 

To gentlest lore, such as the wisest teach — 

Thou strike the lyre of mind ! O grief and shame 



INTR on UC 770 iV. lix 

By the false cant which on their innocent hps 
Must hang Hke poison on an opening bloom, 

By the dark creeds which cover with eclipse 
Their pathway from the cradle to the tomb. 

Another result of Harriet's death was the marriage of Shelley 
and Mary, and, in consequence, reconciliation with Godwin. 
During the early months of 1817 Shelley was detained in 
London by business connected with the suit ; in March he 
took a house in Marlow on the Thames, some thirty miles 
from London, where he lived for a year. During this time 
he was visited by many of his friends, among them Leigh 
Hunt, who gives a description of his manner of life : " He 
was said to be keeping a seraglio at Marlow, and his friends 
partook of the scandal. This keeper of a seraglio, who, in 
fact, was extremely difficult to please in such matters, and 
who had no idea of love unconnected with sentiment, passed 
his days like a hermit. He rose early in the morning, walked 
and read before breakfast, took that meal sparingly, wrote 
and studied the greater part of the morning, walked and 
read again, dined on vegetables (for he took neither meat 
nor wine), conversed with his friends (to whom his house 
was ever open), again walked out, and usually furnished 
reading to his wife till ten o'clock, when he went to bed. 
This was his daily existence. His book was generally Plato 
or Homer or one of the Greek tragedies or the Bible, in 
which last he took a great, though peculiar, and often 
admiring, interest." 

He was vexed as usual by the importunities of creditors ; 
it was not mainly his own expenses that involved him with 
these. He was, indeed, a bad manager of money ; his needs, 
however, were few ; but he continually incurred obligations 
on behalf of his friends. His generosity brought endless 
claims upon him. Of his liberality to Godwin, we have 
already spoken ; Hunt, too, was lavishly helped by Shelley, 



Ix INTK OD UC TION. 

and on Peacock, the poet conferred an annuity of ^loo a 
year. Among the poor of Marlow he had numerous pen- 
sioners, and he gave freely to chance applicants. He 
caught ophthalmia visiting the cottagers, and on one occa- 
sion came home barefoot, having given his boots to some 
unfortunate. His charity extended to the brute creation ; 
he is reported to have bought crayfish from peddlers that 
he might return them to their native haunts. He spent 
much time boating on the Thames and walking in the fields 
and woods. "I have often met him," wrote a lady, "going 
or coming from his island retreat near Medmenham 
Abbey. . . . He was the most interesting figure I ever 
saw; his eyes were like a deer's, bright, but rather wild. 
His white throat unfettered, his slender, but to me almost 
faultless, shape, his brown long coat with curling lamb's wool 
collar and cuffs — in fact, his whole appearance — are as fresh 
in my recollection as an occurrence of yesterday. . . . On 
his return his steps were often hurried, and sometimes he 
was rather fantastically arrayed : ... on his head would be 
a wreath of what in Marlow we call ' old man's beard ' and 
wild flowers intermixed ; at these times he seemed quite 
absorbed, and he dashed along regardless of all he met or 
passed." 

The time Shelley spent at Marlow was a period of great 
literary activity. His health was ailing, and he thought that 
this was his last opportunity of instilling his peculiar views. 
These views he embodied in the longest poem he ever wrote, 
Laoii and CytJma. This work, completed in the autumn of 
1817, failed to find a publisher, but several booksellers 
undertook to sell it at Shelley's risk. Only a few copies 
had been issued when one of these booksellers. Oilier, noted 
some passages certain to excite the abhorrence of most 
readers, and likely to bring down legal penalties on those 
engaged in circulating the book. The issue was stopped ; 



INTRODUCTION. Ixi 

Shelley, though most reluctantly, at length consented to 
certain alterations, which, in his opinion, spoiled the poem. 
These changes having been made, it appeared under a new 
title, The Revolt of Islam. " It is," says the author, " a tale 
illustrative of such a revolution as might be supposed to 
take place in a European nation acted upon by the opinions 
of what has been called (erroneously, as I think) the modern 
philosophy, and contending with ancient notions and the 
supposed advantage derived from them to those who support 
them." "This poem," he says in a letter to Godwin, "was 
produced by a series of thoughts which filled my mind with 
unbounded and sustained enthusiasm. I felt the precari- 
ousness of my life, and I resolved in this book to leave some 
records of myself. Much of what the volume contains was 
written with the same feeling — as real, though not so pro- 
phetic — as the communications of a dying man. I never 
presumed, indeed, to consider it anything approaching to 
faultless, but when I considered contemporary productions 
of the same apparent pretensions, I will own that I was 
filled with confidence. I felt that it was in many respects 
a genuine picture of my own mind. I felt that the senti- 
ments were true, not assumed. And in this I have long 
believed that my power consists — in sympathy, and that 
part of the imagination which relates to sympathy and con- 
templation. I am formed, if for anything not in common 
with the herd of mankind, to apprehend minute and remote 
distinctions of feeling, whether relative to external nature 
or the living beings which surround us, and to communicate 
the conceptions which result from considering either the 
moral or material universe as a whole." 

Two prose pamphlets referring to the state of the nation 
were produced during the year 1817. The earlier of the two 
proposed that the sense of the nation in regard to Parlia- 
mentary Reform (of which Shelley was an advocate) should 



Ixii INTR OD UC TION. 

be ascertained by a plebiscite under the care of a vol- 
untary association. Towards the expenses of such a plan 
Shelley offered a subscription of ;!{^ioo. The moderation 
and good sense of the pamphlets are remarkable when we 
consider the ardor of Shelley's feelings. "Nothing," he 
says, "can less consist with reason or afford smaller hopes 
of any beneficial issue than the plan which should abolish 
the regal or aristocratical branches of our constitution before 
the public mind, through many gradations of improvement, 
shall have arrived at the maturity which can disregard 
these symbols of its childhood." Again : " Political institu- 
tion is undoubtedly susceptible of such improvement as no 
rational person can consider possible as long as the present 
degraded condition to which the vital imperfections in the 
existing system of government has reduced the vast multi- 
tude of men shall subsist. The securest method of arriving 
at such beneficial innovations is to proceed gradually and 
with caution." 

For various reasons, Shelley had for some time been con- 
templating a visit to Italy ; thither he set out on March ii, 
1818, accompanied by his family. There the remaining 
years of his short life, the years of his best poetic work, 
were spent. In Italy, as in England, he continually changed 
his place of abode. At first, the Shelleys were drawn to 
Leghorn by the presence of a Mrs. Gisborne. This lady 
had been the friend both of Mary's father and of her mother. 
She attracted Shelley by various qualities. " Mrs. Gisborne," 
he writes in 18 19, "is a sufficiently amiable and very accom- 
plished woman; she is SrjfxoKpaTtKr] and aOerj — how far she 
may be cf>iXav6p(0Trr} I don't know, for she is the antipodes 
of enthusiasm. Her husband, a man with little thin lips, 
receding forehead, and a prodigious nose, is an excessive 
bore. His nose is something quite Slawkenbergian — it 
weighs on the imagination to look at it. . . . It is a nose 



INTR OD UC TION. Ixiii 

once seen never to be forgotten, and which requires the 
utmost strength of Christian charity to forgive. I, you 
know, have a little turn-up nose ; Hogg has a large hook 
one ; but add them both together, square them, cube them, 
you will have but a faint idea of the nose to which I refer." 
The son of Mrs. Gisborne by a former marriage, Henry 
Reveley, was an engineer and inventor. Shelley became 
interested in the construction of a steamboat which Reveley 
was engaged in w^orking out, and furnished some of the 
needful money. 

In August he visited Byron at Venice. Byron offered him 
the use of his villa at Este. Shelley accepted, and was 
joined by Mary and her two children. But no sooner had the 
latter arrived in Venice than the infant daughter died ; hence 
sadness hung over them during their stay at Este, a sadness 
which is apparent in Lines Written among the Euganean Hills. 
The poet's creative activity, which had been dormant during 
the first months in Italy, revived. He wrote Julian and 
Maddalo, which contains idealized portraits of Byron and 
himself, a veiled account of some of his personal experi- 
ences, and reminiscences of Venetian scenes. Here, also, 
he began the Prometheus Unbound^ and completed the first 
act. 

Winter and spring were spent in southern Italy, in Naples, 
and in Rome. In the former city he suffered much from 
depression of spirits, partly the result of ill health and iso- 
lation ; partly, perhaps, arising from a connection with a 
certain mysterious lady which is vaguely hinted at but can- 
not now be elucidated.^ In March he took up his residence 
in Rome. He read classical writers and diligently visited 
the galleries and antiquities. "You know not," he writes to 
Peacock, " how delicate the imagination becomes by dieting 
with antiquity day after day." Most of all he delighted in 
1 See note on Stanzas Written in Dejection. 



Ixi V INTR on UC TION. 

those massive ruins where, in his day, art and nature were 
inextricably blended, — the Palatine, the Colosseum, and the 
Baths of Caracalla. In a letter to Peacock, he gives a 
description of the last mentioned, which is interesting as 
exhibiting points of resemblance with the imaginary scenery 
of some of his own poetry. 

The next most considerable relic of antiquity, considered as a 
ruin, is the Thermae of Caracalla. These consist of six enormous 
chambers above two hundred feet in height, and each enclosing a 
vast space like that of a field. There are, in addition, a number of 
towers and labyrinthine recesses, hidden and woven over by the 
wild growth of weeds and ivy. Never was any desolation more 
sublime and lovely. The perpendicular wall of ruin is cloven into 
steep ravines filled up with flowering shrubs, whose thick, twisted 
roots are knotted in the rifts of the stones. At every step the 
aerial pinnacles of shattered stone group into new combinations 
of effect, and tower above the lofty yet level walls as the distant 
mountains change their aspect to one travelling rapidly along the 
plain. . . . These walls surround green and level spaces of lawn, 
on which some elms have grown, and which are interspersed 
towards their skirts by masses of the fallen ruin overtwined with 
the broad leaves of the creeping weeds. The blue sky canopies 
it, and is as the everlasting roof of these enormous halls. But the 
most interesting effect remains. In one of the buttresses that 
supports an immense and lofty arch which "bridges the very 
winds of heaven " are the crumbling remains of an antique wind- 
ing staircase, whose sides are open in many places to the preci- 
pice. This you ascend and arrive on the summit of these 
piles. There grow on every side thick entangled wildernesses of 
myrtle, and the myrletus, and bay, and the flowering laurustinus, 
whose white blossoms are just developed, the wild fig, and a thou- 
sand nameless plants sown by the wandering winds. These woods 
are intersected on every side by paths, like sheep tracks through 
the copse wood of steep mountains, which wind to every part of 
this immense labyrinth. From the midst rise those pinnacles and 
masses, themselves like immense mountains, which have been seen 



INTR OD UC TION. Ix V 

from below. . . . Come to Rome. It is a scene by which ex- 
pression is overpowered, which words cannot convey. Still farther, 
winding up one-half of the shattered pyramids by the path through 
the blooming copse-wood, you come to a little mossy lawn sur- 
rounded by wild shrubs ; it is overgrown with anemones, wall- 
flowers, and violets, whose stalks pierce the starry moss, and with 
radiant blue flowers whose names I know not, and whicli scatter 
through the air the divinest odour, which, as you recline under the 
shade of the ruin, produces sensations of voluptuous faintness like 
the combinations of sweet music. The paths still wind on, thread- 
ing the perplexed windings, other lawns, and deep dells of wood 
and lofty rocks and terrific chasms. When I tell you that these 
ruins cover several acres, and that the paths above penetrate at 
least half their extent, your imagination will fill up all that I am 
unable to express of this astonishing scene. 

Amidst such scenes the poet wandered while he composed 
the second and third acts of the Prometheus. Nature and 
art, however, were not enough. He felt keenly the con- 
tempt of the world for him as a man, its neglect of him as a 
poet. " I am regarded by all who know or hear me, except, 
I think, on the whole, five individuals, as a prodigy of crime 
and pollution whose look even might infect. . . . Such is 
the spirit of the English abroad as well as at home." In 
June another sorrow befell Shelley and his wife, — their 
remaining child died. Shelley wrote to Peacock : " Yes- 
terday, after an illness of only a few days, my little William 
died. There was no hope from the moment of the attack. 
You will be kind enough to tell all my friends, so that I need 
not write to them. It is a great exertion to me to write this, 
and it seems to me as if, hunted by calamity as I have been, 
that I should never recover my cheerfulness again." 

The summer of 1819 was spent in Leghorn and its neigh- 
borhood. Its chief literary outcome was The Cenci. The 
inspiration had come from the story and picture of Beatrice, 
with both of which he had become acquainted at Rome. A 



Ix vi INTR on UC TION. 

visit to Florence gave him an opportunity of enjoying the 
splendid works of art gathered there. " All worldly thoughts 
and cares," he wrote, " seem to vanish from before the sub- 
lime emotions such spectacles create ; and I am deeply 
impressed with the great difference of happiness enjoyed by 
those who live at a distance from these incarnations of all 
that the finest minds have conceived of beauty, and those 
who can resort to their company at pleasure. What should 
we think if we were forbidden to read the great writers who 
have left us their works } And yet to be forbidden to live 
at Florence or Rome is an evil of the same kind and hardly 
of less magnitude." But his sympathies were not lacking 
for more mundane matters ; he considered poetry, he said 
about this time, very subordinate to moral and political 
science. It was this summer that a great Reform meeting 
at Manchester had been dispersed by military force at the 
expense of several lives. The event led Shelley to write a 
series of political poems, The Masque of A?ia7rky, So?ig to 
the Men of England^ etc. Whatever the bitterness of these 
poems, their author was always opposed to violence. " The 
true patriot," he writes, "will endeavor to enlighten and to 
unite the nation and animate it with enthusiasm and confi- 
dence. . . . Lastly, if circumstances had collected a con- 
siderable number, as at Manchester on the memorable i6th 
of August, if the tyrants send their troops to fire upon them 
or cut them down unless they disperse, he will exhort them 
peaceably to defy the danger, and to expect without resistance 
the onset of the cavalry, and wait with folded arms the event 
of the fire of the artillery, and receive with unshrinking 
bosoms the bayonets of charging battalions. . . . And 
this not because active resistance is not justifiable, but 
because in this instance temperance and courage would pro- 
duce greater advantages than the most decisive victory." 
Shelley's works were almost unread in his own lifetime. 



INTRODUCTION. Ixvii 

In so far as he was known to the public, he was known 
through second-hand reports of the immoraUty of Queen 
Mab and through the notoriety of the chancery suit. In 
this year, however, he was reviewed in two leading periodi- 
cals. The Quarterly attacked The Revolt of Islam and the 
personal character of its author. On the other hand, his 
work received the most appreciative notice which it ever 
received during the life of the poet, in three articles in Black- 
wood written by Professor Wilson (" Christopher North "). 
Another joyful event of the same year was the birth of a 
son, Percy. 

During the last two years of Shelley's life (182 0-1822) 
a circle of friends gathered about him. One of these was 
the Greek leader. Prince Mavrocordato, through whom the 
poet came into close relations with the revolutionary move- 
ment which was passing over Europe. To him was dedicated 
the lyrical drama Hellas (182 1), based on the contemporary 
events of the Greek uprising, and framed after the model of 
the Persce of ^schylus. Another person to join the circle 
was Medwin, Shelley's former schoolfellow and subsequent 
biographer. There were, besides, several Italians of whom 
he saw a good deal. Towards the close of 182 1 he became 
acquainted with Emilia Viviani, a young Italian lady, whose 
unhappiness, beauty, and sensibility elevated her, for a short 
time, in the poet's estimation into an incarnation of womanly 
perfection. This experience he embodied in Epipsychiclion. 
A friendship not less important for his poetic work, and 
more important in his personal life, was that formed with 
Mr. and Mrs. Edward Williams. The former was a year or 
two younger than Shelley, of a simple and bright disposition, 
with literary interests, gentle, generous, and fearless. He 
shared in Shelley's fondness for boating, and the two friends 
made many expeditions on the water together. Mrs. Wil- 
liams, the Jane so often addressed in Shelley's later lyrics, 



Ixviii INTRODUCTION. 

was possessed of great grace and sweetness. She seemed 
to Shelley to realize the idea he had formed of the lady in 
The Sensitive Plant. She also played and sang charmingly. 
In the happiness of this wedded pair and their mutual 
sympathy, Shelley saw the realization of a paradise such as 
he had dreamed might be his own, but which he had never 
yet found. 

In 182 1 a bitter attack was made upon Shelley in The 
London Lite7'ary Gazette^ on the occasion of the publication 
(notwithstanding Shelley's efforts to suppress it) of a pirated 
edition of Queen Mab. Shocking accusations, too, were cir- 
culated among personal friends in Italy by former household 
servants. Under all this Shelley suffered. A visit to Byron 
at Ravenna seemed to intensify this feeling of depression ; 
for Shelley regarded Byron's genius as greatly superior to 
his own, and intercourse with Byron made him dissatisfied 
with his own work. Weighed down by these various influ- 
ences, he writes from Ravenna to Mary: ^' My greatest con- 
tent would be utterly to desert all human society. I would 
retire with you and our child to a solitary island in the sea 
and build a boat, and shut upon my retreat the flood-gates 
of the world. I would read no reviews and talk with no 
authors. If I dared trust my imagination, it would tell me 
that there are one or two chosen companions besides yourself 
whom I should desire. But to this I would not listen — where 
two or three are gathered together the devil is among them. 
And good, far more than evil impulses, love, far more than 
hatred, has been to me, except as you have been its object, 
the source of all sorts of mischief. So on this plan I would 
be alone^ and would devote either to oblivion or to future gener- 
ations the overflowings of a mind which, timely withdrawn 
from contagion, should be kept fit for no baser object." 

The sadness of Shelley's last years is mirrored in his 
later poems, and his power of giving it expression is the 



INTK OD UC TION. Ixix 

unique distinction of his work. It was not merely that there 
was little of joy anc4 much of positive evil in the life of the 
homeless wanderer ; a nature so visionary, so ardent, so 
blind to practical considerations was inevitably doomed to 
disappointment. Even his hopeful and unpractical spirit 
must have often become conscious that the millennium whose 
speedy approach he had in his early days anticipated was 
far remote; sometimes the chilling thought may have come 
home to him that it could never be realized. In the narrower 
sphere of his own personal concerns his faith in human 
nature had received many a shock ; the anticipations of 
youthful love and friendship had been repeatedly disap- 
pointed. Miss Kitchener, Harriet, Mary, Emilia, Hogg, 
South ey, Godwin, had all fallen short of the poet's ideal. 
His own life and work must have seemed a failure. Not 
merely had he been wholly unsuccessful in reforming the 
world — he had not even caught the public ear. His poetic 
gifts were almost unrecognized. He was a mark for scorn, 
and was avoided as a social leper. And so his sensitive 
nature gave utterance to that wonderful lyric note of loneli- 
ness, sadness, and yearning which pervades his work, and 
even to that strange cry for annihilation, for the dissolution 
of the finite in the infinite, which closes the Adonais and 
the last chorus of Hellas. 

In the autumn of 182 1 Byron moved to Pisa, where Shelley 
was residing. The two poets determined to establish a 
periodical for the dissemination of advanced views, to be 
named The Liberal^ and to be edited by Leigh Hunt. The 
desire of assisting Hunt was Shelley's chief motive for em- 
barking in the enterprise. The circle at Pisa was increased 
in the beginning of 1822 by the addition of Edward John 
Trelawny, whose Records give by far the most vivid and 
satisfying impression of Shelley in his last days. Trelawny 
became acquainted with the poet through the Williamses, 



Ixx INTRODUCTION. 

and thus narrates his first meeting: "The Williamses 
received me in their earnest, cordial manner ; we had a great 
deal to communicate to each other, and were in loud and 
animated conversation, when I was rather put out by observ- 
ing in the passage near the open door, opposite to where 1 
sat, a pair of glittering eyes steadily fixed on mine ; it was 
too dark to make out whom they belonged to. With the 
acuteness of a woman, Mrs. Williams's eyes followed the 
direction of mine, and, going to the doorway, she laughingly 
said, 'Come in, Shelley; it's only our friend Tre just 
arrived.' Swiftly gliding in, blushing like a girl, a tall, thin 
stripling held out his hands ; and, although I could hardly 
believe as I looked at his flushed, feminine, and artless face 
that it could be the Poet, I returned his warm pressure. 
After the ordinary greetings and courtesies he sat down and 
listened. I was silent from astonishment. Was it possible 
this mild-looking, beardless boy could be the veritable monster 
at war with all the world, excommunicated by the Fathers of 
the Church, deprived of his civil rights by the fiat of a grim 
Lord Chancellor, discarded by every member of his family, 
and denounced by the rival sages of our literature as the 
founder of a Satanic school? I could not believe it; it 
must be a hoax. . . . He was habited like a boy, in a black 
jacket and trousers which he seemed to have outgrown, or 
his tailor, as is the custom, had most shamefully stinted him 
in his 'sizings.' Mrs. Williams saw my embarrassment, and 
to relieve me asked Shelley what book he had in his hand. 
His face brightened and he answered briskly, ' Calderon's 
Magico Prodigioso ; I am translating some passages in it.' 
' Oh, read it to us! ' Shoved off from the shore of common- 
place incidents that could not interest him, and fairly launched 
on a theme that did, he instantly became oblivious of every- 
thing but the book in his hand. The masterly manner in 
which he analyzed the genius of the author, his lucid inter- 



INTRODUCTION. Ixxi 

pretation of the story, and the ease with which he translated 
into our language the most subtle and imaginative passages 
of the Spanish poet were marvellous, as was his command of 
the two languages. After this touch of his quality I no 
longer doubted his identity. A dead silence ensued. Look- 
ing up, I asked, ' Where is he ? ' Mrs. Williams said, ' Who ? 
Shelley ? oh, he comes and goes like a spirit, no one knows 
when or where.' " 

Another anecdote of Trelawny's may be quoted: "I 
called on him one morning at ten ; he was in his study with 
a German folio open, resting on the broad marble mantel- 
piece over an old-fashioned fireplace, and with a dictionary 
in his hand. He always read standing if possible. He had 
promised over night to go with me, but now begged me to 
let him off. I then rode to Leghorn, eleven or twelve miles 
distant, and passed the day there ; on returning at six in the 
evening to dine with Mrs. Shelley and the Williamses as I 
had engaged to do, I went into the Poet's room and found 
him exactly in the position in which I had left him in the 
morning, but looking pale and exhausted. ' Well,' I said, 
'have you found it?' Shutting the book and going to the 
window, he replied, ' No, I have lost it,' with a deep sigh: ' I 
have lost a day.' 'Cheer up, my lad, and come to dinner.' 
Putting his long fingers through his masses of wild, tangled 
hair, he answered faintly, 'You go; I have dined — late eat- 
ing don't do for me.' 'What is this?' I asked as I was 
going out of the room, pointing to one of his bookshelves 
with a plate containing bread and cold meat upon it. 
' That ? ' colouring, ' why, that must be my dinner. It 's 
very foolish ; I thought I had eaten it.' " 

Again Trelawny writes : " Shelley's mental activity was 
infectious ; he kept your brain in constant action. Its effect 
on his comrade was very striking. Williams gave up all his 
accustomed sports for books and the bettering of his mind." 



Ixxii INTR OD UC TION. 

" His mental faculties," Trelawny says in another place, 
" completely mastered his material nature, and hence he 
unhesitatingly acted up to his own theories if they only 
demanded sacrifices on his part ; it was where they impli- 
cated others that he forbore." 

For the summer of 1822, the Shelleys and Williamses took 
a house in common, close to the sea, in a cove of the Bay of 
Spezzia. Here the chief amusement was sailing, and the 
two friends had a boat built, twenty-eight feet long and eight 
feet broad, which they managed themselves with the assist- 
ance of a young lad. The incessant boating improved 
Shelley's health ; he was unusually well and happy. Yet 
on June 18 he wrote to Trelawny to procure him some 
prussic acid. "I need not tell you," he adds, "that I have 
no intention of suicide at present ; but I confess it would be 
a comfort to me to hold in my possession that golden key to 
the chamber of perpetual rest." On June 29 he wrote: "I 
still inhabit this divine bay, reading Spanish dramas and 
sailing and listening to the most enchanting music [Mrs. Wil- 
liams's singing and playing]. If the past and future could 
be obliterated, the present would content me so well that I 
could say with Faust to the passing moment, ' Remain thou, 
thou art so beautiful.' " 

In order to welcome Leigh Hunt on his arrival in Italy to 
take charge of The Liberal^ Shelley and Williams sailed on 
their own boat as far as Pisa. Having seen Hunt, Byron, 
and other friends, they left Pisa, July 8, on their return 
voyage. The weather was threatening. Trelawny had in- 
tended to accompany them some distance in another boat ; 
he was, however, detained, and watched them from his 
anchorage ; but they were soon hidden by a rising mist ; 
presently the storm burst. Neither Shelley, Williams, nor 
the sailor boy was ever seen alive again. The bodies were 
subsequently found. On account of the quarantine laws 



INTRODUCTION. Ixxiii 

Shelley's body was burned on the shore, the ashes conveyed 
to Rome and buried in the beautiful Protestant cemetery 
described by himself in the closing stanzas of the Adonais. 

11. 

The sphere of poetry is wide ; the particular province 
which any writer occupies is determined by his personal 
character, the circumstances of his life, and the tendencies 
of his time. Of the character of Shelley the foregoing pages 
are intended to give some impression. It was not a charac- 
ter of the normal type ; Shelley did not act like other 
people, and he had a very inadequate idea of the relative 
strength of the various forces which influence the ordinary 
individual and have shaped the history of the race. Add 
to these peculiarities a nature of unusual intensity, swayed 
and mastered by its own emotion, and we can easily under- 
stand, not merely that his views were eccentric, but also 
that he was incapacitated for attaining to the point of view 
of others, for understanding persons unlike himself, and for 
seeing things as they really are. In actual life he constantly 
misrepresented and distorted what he saw; he was often 
incapable of discriminating between the facts and his emo 
tional and imaginative additions to them ; he condemned 
and eulogized extravagantly ; and with regard to one and 
the same object would pass from one extreme to the other 
under the influence of feeling. From such a man we can- 
not expect poetry which will successfully represent the world 
as it is, which will bring before us the varied types of men 
and women so that they shall seem real to us, and so that 
we may involuntarily enter into their feelings. The real 
external world is feebly outlined, or becomes dispropor- 
tioned, grotesque, gigantic in its passage through Shelley's 
mind. This is illustrated by his view of history as reflected, 



Ixxiv INTRODUCTION. 

for example, in Queen Alab. " He conceived it in a series of 
visions — visions which were thrown before him, as it were, 
by the phantasmagoria of his own imagination. Empires 
rose and fell as if by the power of earthquakes, and anarchs 
stalked huge across the scene, and priests were banded in 
dark conclaves, and patriot martyrs endured the agony; and 
then the series was exhausted and the same pictures were 
shown over again." ^ In The Revolt of Islam^ the poet passes 
without notice and without sense of incongruity from the 
world of reality to the world of pure fancy ; and incidents 
which are supposed to happen in nineteenth-century Europe 
seem as incredible and remote as those out of which he con- 
structed his boyish romances, Zastrozzi and St. Irvyiie. Rosa- 
lind and Heleji.^ professedly a story of contemporary domestic 
life, though free from the extravagant incidents of The Revolt 
of Islam ^ has as little power of holding the reader's interest, 
because of the feebleness anH ineffectiveness of plot and char- 
acterization. The only apparent exception to Shelley's limi- 
tations as a portrayer of incident and character is The Cenci, — 
unquestionably one of the most powerful dramatic works 
produced in English since the close of the seventeenth 
century. It is significant, however, that, although he here 
treats a tradition concerning real men and women, it is a 
story of unnatural and almost incredible horror, representing 
human nature in abnormal conditions and events which 
would not be out of place in the most extravagant romance. 
The structure of the play is defective, close imitations of 
Shakespeare are frequent, and the minor characters are 
mere reproductions of regular dramatic types. The great- 
ness of the play lies in its two leading personages, and these 
are of a simplicity that approximates them to abstractions — 
Cenci is the incarnation of evil, Beatrice of suffering inno- 
cence. We have, indeed, in The Cenci, a treatment of 
1 Dowden's Life of Shelley, I, p. 335. 



INTR on UC TION. Ixx v 

Shelley's oft-repeated theme, — goodness, weak and perse- 
cuted, struggling with evil, strengthened by authority and 
consecrated by custom. Beatrice is an impersonation of the 
spirit of good as it has hitherto been imperfectly realized 
among men — imperfectly, because it has not learned the 
lesson taught in the ProDietheus^ that good, if it is to triumph, 
must abjure hatred and violence. Beatrice's neglect of this 
truth brings about the tragic catastrophe. 

From the sphere, then, of the great objective poets like 
Shakespeare — from the successful embodiment in his works 
of the world outside of us, Shelley was excluded. It was 
not in external but in internal experiences, — that life of his 
own soul which he so intensely lived, — that Shelley found 
the material for his best work. Notwithstanding his isola- 
tion, this inner life was not self-centered, as was, for example, 
the inner life of Keats. The world as it affected him per- 
sonally, his own joys and sorrows, did not make up the sum 
of his existence. On the contrary, his keenest interest was 
concerned with the well-being of society at large. "The 
predominant impulse in Shelley," it has been said, " was a 
passion for reforming mankind." A great part of his inner 
life was made up of thoughts and feelings about his fellow- 
men, — their past history, their present condition, their future 
destiny. The constant friction between Shelley and his envi- 
ronment, his extreme sensitiveness, his peculiarly keen per- 
ception of the difference between desire and attainment, the 
misfortunes of his own life, — all these led him to emphasize 
the ills of the present state of things ; whilst his inexperi- 
ence and his ardent temperament made it natural that he 
should anticipate the speedy realization of a millennium 
whence evil and misery would be banished. This revolu- 
tion would be accomplished if only men would lay to heart 
and put in practice certain truths. Of these truths Shelley 
considered himself to be in possession, and attempted to 



Ixxvi INTRODUCTION. 

disseminate them by his writings. Accordingly, one part of 
Shelley's inner life and one part of his poetic work is con- 
cerned with the world at large — with social, political, and 
religious matters, and with views as to the constitution of 
the universe which are naturally connected with these. 
Another part of his poetic work reflects the thoughts and 
feelings which pertained to his own individual life. 

To the first division belong some of Shelley's longest and 
most ambitious efforts : Queen Alab, The Revolt of Islafn, 
Prometheus Unbound. In so far as these poems embody 
the poet's ideas in concrete pictures of actual human life, we 
have already characterized them as comparatively unsuccess- 
ful. But Shelley had a strong innate tendency to turn from 
the concrete to the abstract, from men and things to man in 
the abstract and generalizations about the universe. He 
had, in short, as is shown by his favorite studies, the philo- 
sophic bent. He is early interested in Godwin, Locke, 
Hume, Condorcet, Plato, and other theoretical writers. His 
fondness for discussing abstract questions is emphasized by 
Hogg, and is manifest in his correspondence. To history, 
on the other hand, which deals with individual facts and 
actual life, he entertained a strong repugnance. When he 
attacked the Irish question he knew little of and cared little 
for the special circumstances of the case. His argument 
deals in broad generalities, and had no special cogency for 
the Irish and the crisis then existing. This preference for 
the general and abstract is unusual among poets ; for poetry 
is essentially concrete, as science is abstract and general. 
It is a circumstance of capital import that Shelley was at 
once a poet and a student of philosophical generalizations 
rather than substantial facts, who thought much about man 
in general, and understood but little of men as individuals. 
So when Shelley takes the larger life of humanity as his 
theme, he tends to turn from the direct picturing of that life 



INTRODUCTION. Ixxvii 

to the unfolding of theories and generaHzations concerning 
it. Other poets have done the same thing, but philosophical 
poetry has been cold. It is Shelley's unique distinction that 
he is able to infuse intense emotion into such themes, and 
to clothe them with all that passion and beauty which usually 
gather about more tangible objects. The philosophical poet, 
in his anxiety to give a complete exposition of his views, 
becomes purely intellectual and prosaic. Whereas Shelley's 
emotional nature so far predominates, that he subordinates 
exposition to the expression of feeling ; and his poetry be- 
comes a series of lyrical outbursts about abstract ideas which 
he only vaguely indicates. By far the best illustration of his 
philosophical poetry is the P7'0i7ietheus Unbound. It is the 
most complete single embodiment of Shelley's views as to the 
constitution of the universe, the past history of mankind, 
the principles which should at present guide the wise and 
good, the future of the world if these principles are fol- 
lowed. The poem does not take the form of an exposition 
— a form so fatal to the poetic spirit ; nor, though a drama, 
does it attempt the delineation of human life, — an attempt 
which must, in the face of Shelley's limitations, have been 
unsatisfactory. The stage is occupied with personifications, 
and the great movements of human development presented 
through symbolic situations. These personifications win 
something of reality and life from Shelley's earnestness; and, 
in monologue and song, give utterance to the varying moods 
which agitate the poet's soul as he contemplates the condi- 
tion and prospects of the race. If their significance is some- 
what vague and the plot incoherent, this is the natural outcome 
of lack of clearness and connectedness in the poet's thinking. 
The particular philosophic ideas imbedded in Shelley's 
poetry bear markedly the impress of his time. He grew to 
maturity while society about him was under the influence of 
a revulsion of feeling produced by the excesses of the French 



Ixxviii INTRODUCTION. 

Revolution and whilst the national energies were concen- 
trated in resisting the aggressions of Napoleon. The intense 
conservatism and the political narrowness of this era, the 
repressive measures, the encroachments on individual liberty, 
the wrongs perpetrated in political prosecutions under the 
name of justice aroused, in turn, a desire for change and the 
spirit of resistance in a growing minority. With this minority 
Shelley was led to sympathize by the predominating charac- 
teristics of his intellect and temperament. He had a dis- 
position to quarrel with authority, sufficiently evident in his 
private life, a sensitiveness to evil which made him overlook 
the good in existing institutions, a youthful inexperience and 
impetuosity which undervalued slow developments, a tend- 
ency to depend upon abstract reasoning and individual 
thinking rather than on the gradually evolved results of the 
experience of the race. Every one of these peculiarities 
made congenial to him the radical and doctrinaire phi- 
losophy which is associated with the French Revolution. 
He became the disciple of Godwin and Condorcet ; and, 
although, in time, the imaginative and mystic elements in his 
nature induced him to add to the teachings of such men, 
doctrines borrowed from philosophers as unlike them as 
Berkeley and Plato, certain fundamental principles of the 
French school were retained by him throughout life and 
continue to color his writings. These were especially such 
as bore upon the political and social conditions of men, — 
the belief in the natural goodness of human nature ; the idea 
that evil is the result of defective social, national, and 
religious institutions ; the dislike of accepted doctrines and 
of established organizations ; the love of liberty for its 
own sake ; unlimited confidence in democracy. For a more 
minute statement of Shelley's views on these matters the 
reader is referred to the Prometheus and to the notes on 
that poem in this volume. 



INTRODUCTION. Ixxix 

In his religious views and in his theories as to the ultimate 
nature of the universe, he was not, in his riper years at least, 
in such complete sympathy with eighteenth-century scepti- 
cism. It is true that at first — in the notes to Queen Mab, for 
instance — he adopted the tone and principles of this school, 
and regarded all religions, Christianity among them, as hate- 
ful systems of imposture. That Christianity had prescription 
of its side, and that, as practically realized in the commu- 
nity in which he lived, it was full of defects, — these were 
sufficient grounds to prejudice Shelley against it. Subse- 
quently, however, Shelley abandoned the purely hostile atti- 
tude, and came to acknowledge the charm of the personality 
of Jesus as revealed in the gospels. In Prometheus and in 
Hellas he regards the founder of Christianity as a great 
ethical teacher and a martyr in the cause of good. In the 
more systematic treatment of the Essay on Christia?iity he 
contrasts what he conceives to have been the teachings and 
practice of Jesus himself with those of the Christian churches 
-^much to the disadvantage of the latter. But the super- 
natural in Christianity he consistently rejected, and con- 
tinued to regard religion, like government, as an evil 
influence among men. Shelley was, indeed, naturally non- 
religious. The two fundamental religious emotions, the 
feeling of awe and reverence and the feeling of sin, he 
almost entirely lacked. There was no holy ground for him; 
the sacred and the awful served merely to titillate his inquisi- 
tive intellect, to excite it to the work of investigation and 
analysis. And so, too, acting, as he so uniformly did, on 
impulse, he knew little of the conflict between the natural 
man and the higher law, which begets in spirits such as 
Paul or Bunyan, the sense of personal un worthiness, the 
need of dependence on some higher power. Hence, Shelley 
easily adopted atheism in his college days ; and later, when 
his nature mellowed, he never felt the need, in the emotional 



Ixxx INTRODUCTION. 

sphere, of an infinite being to love and reverence ; any more 
than in the intellectual sphere he perceived any necessity for 
some central, personal force to account for the phenomena 
of the universe. 

The sense of personality was extraordinarily weak in 
Shelley. Mr. Bagehot says: "It is a received opinion in 
metaphysics that the idea of personality is identical with 
the idea of will. ... If this theory be true — and doubt- 
less it is an approximation to the truth — it is evident that 
a mind ordinarily moved by simple impulse will have little 
distinct consciousness of personality. While thrust forward 
by such impulse it is a mere instrument; outward things set 
it in motion; it goes where they bid ; it exerts no will upon 
them ; it is, to speak expressively, a mere conducting thing. 
When such a mind is free from such impulse there is even 
less will ; thoughts, feelings, ideas, emotions pass before it 
in a sort of dream ; for the time it is a mere perceiving 
thing. In neither case is there any trace of voluntary char- 
acter." Accordingly, personality and will, and even mind, 
were rejected in Shelley's earlier philosophy, enunciated in 
the text and notes of Queen Mab. There he appears as a 
believer in crude materialism ; the world is the result of 
a fortuitous concourse of atoms. As he grew maturer this 
most unpoetical of philosophical systems was abandoned ; 
from a materialist he became a kind of idealist. He denied, 
following Hume, any essential difference between thoughts 
and things, and reduced them both to sensations. "Noth- 
ing exists but as it is perceived." He now admitted the 
existence of mind ; not, however, of individual minds, but 
of mind in general, of universal mind — whatever that may 
mean. The very vagueness and impalpableness of this phi- 
losophy commended it to his perception. In his Essay on 
Life, conjecturally dated 1815, he writes: "Let us recollect 
our sensations as children. . . . We less habitually dis- 



INTRODUCTION. Ixxxi 

tinguished all that we saw and felt, from ourselves. They 
seemed, as it were, to constitute one mass. There are some 
persons who, in this respect, are always children. Those 
who are subject to the state called reverie feel as if their 
nature were dissolved into the surrounding universe, or as 
if the surrounding universe were absorbed into their being. 
They are conscious of no distinction. And these are states 
which precede or accompany or follow an unusually in- 
tense and vivid apprehension of life. . . . The view of life 
presented by the most refined deductions of intellectual phi- 
losphy, is that of unity. Nothing exists but as it is perceived. 
The difference is merely nominal between those two classes 
of thought, which are vulgarly distinguished by the names of 
ideas and of external objects. Pursuing the same thread 
of reasoning, the existence of individual minds, similar to 
that which is employed in now questioning its own nature, 
is likewise found to be a delusion. The words 7, you., they 
are not signs of any actual difference subsisting between 
the assemblage of thoughts thus indicated, but are merely 
marks employed to denote the different modifications of the 
one mind. Let it not be supposed that this doctrine con- 
ducts to the monstrous presumption that I, the person who 
now write and think, am that one mind. I am but a portion 
of it. The words /, you, and they are grammatical devices 
invented simply for arrangement, and totally devoid of the' 
intense and exclusive sense usually attached to them. It is 
difficult to find terms adequate to express so subtle a con- 
ception as that to which the Intellectual Philosophy has 
conducted us. We are on that verge where words abandon 
us, and what wonder if we grow dizzy to look down the dark 
abyss of how little we know."^ 

"This doctrine was," says Mr. Bagehot, "a better descrip- 
tion of his universe than of most people's; his mind was 
1 Prose Works (Forman's ed.), Vol. II, pp. 261, 262. 



Ixxxii INTR on UC TION. 

filled with a swarm of ideas, fancies, thoughts, streaming on 
without his volition, without plan or order ; he might be 
pardoned for fancying that they were all ; he could not see 
the outward world for them, their giddy passage occupied 
him till he forgot himself." 

This doctrine he derived from the writings of Berkeley 
and Hume, though he differs from each of these philoso- 
phers : from Berkeley in denying the existence of individual 
minds, from Hume in admitting the existence of something 
besides sensations, — universal mind. Yet this mind is 
neither personal, nor the ultimate cause of things. It is not 
a cause at all, for " it cannot create : it can only perceive." 
And he adds, " It is extremely improbable that the cause of 
mind, that is, of existence, is similar to mind." ^ 

These ideas are mainly negative ; but to them Shelley 
added a positive conception derived from Plato, viz. : th^t 
these sensations, with which alone we are acquainted in this 
world, are imperfect shadows of a higher world into which, 
perhaps, we may pass at death, where exist in perfection the 
archetypes of all we dimly perceive here.^ He did not bring 
this conception into logical connection with his other theo- 
ries. Logic had nothing to do with his acceptance of it. 
He was brought to it by his persistent discontent with the 
actual and by his yearning for ideals that would completely 
satisfy the cravings of his nature. " I seek in what I see," 
he said, " the manifestation of something beyond the pres- 
ent and tangible object." 

One of these archetypes plays a very important role in 
Shelley's poetry, — the archetype of beauty. About this 
conception some of those feelings cluster which, in the case 
of the majority of men, connect themselves with the idea of 
a personal god. Upon this conception of an all-sufficing 

1 On Life, in Prose Works, Vol. II, p. 263. 

'^ See the concluding stanzas of the Adonais, and notes thereon. 



INTRO D UC TION. Ixxxiii 

beauty which but faintly manifests itself in the various 
forms of beauty known in this world, the poet dwells with 
extraordinary fondness and enthusiasm in the Hyiiin to In- 
tellectical Beauty^ the Fromethetcs, and elsewhere ; and the 
intense passion which permeates the lines in which he 
speaks of it, is one of the most extraordinary of Shelley's 
peculiarities. Sometimes, in his impatient yearning for that 
perfect rapture which should gratify at once every complex 
need of his nature, he hoped to find, even in this world, the 
incarnation of this ideal in female form. The consequent 
experience, the inevitable disappointment is enshrined in 
Alastor and Epipsychidion. As the desire for the ideal, — in 
other words, beauty, — was his strongest motive, he some- 
times conceives this beauty as the moving force of the uni- 
verse, — the ultimate spirit which works toward good in the 
mind of man and in the external world. This is Shelley's 
nearest approach to the conception of the divine, and it 
receives its most adequate poetic expression in the Adonais. 
But, though there spoken of as a ' spirit,' it is a spirit with- 
out personal attributes, — a blind power which impels all 
that is highest and best in the world, something as vague 
and impersonal as the modern conception of force, one and 
indestructible, though manifesting itself in various forms 
and in countless phenomena. 

Poetry whose substance consists of philosophical and 
abstract ideas labors under a twofold disadvantage. In 
the first place, such themes lack interest for ordinary 
readers and lend themselves but little to emotional treat- 
ment. In the second place, there is less of permanence in 
the results attained by the abstract reason than in the 
direct results of observation. The pictures of human life 
by a Homer or a Shakespeare are always fresh ; the theories 
of one generation of philosophic thinkers become inade- 
quate and childish to another. Shelley was not even a pro- 



Ixxxi V INTR OD UC TION. 

found philosophic thinker ; his theories were at no time 
systematically wrought out ; their inadequacy is unfavorable 
to the popularity and permanence of the writings in which 
they are embodied. To our generation, the absence of the 
conception of development is a prime defect. On the other 
hand, Shelley's work is interesting historically as the most 
adequate and beautiful expression, in English poetry, of 
certain tendencies in thought and feeling associated with 
the beginnings of the modern democratic period. And 
some of these tendencies are still potent forces, and seem 
likely to remain so. The enthusiasm for humanity, the feel- 
ing of the brotherhood of man, the sense of the responsi- 
bility of society at large and of each individual in it for the 
condition of its members, the belief in the capacity of 
woman for a wider and more public sphere of action, — 
these and kindred feelings find their first, and, as yet, their 
most beautiful poetic expression in the writings of Shelley. 

Let us now turn to the second division of Shelley's poetry, 
— to that portion which reflects his more purely individual 
life and feelings. The matter is personal ; the form usu- 
ally, though not always, lyric. It is in his lyrics that 
Shelley is most successful, and among them are to be found 
the only poems which are in any degree popular. As a lyric 
poet, he is unsurpassed in a certain peculiar and limited 
sphere, — a sphere, too, somewhat outside of the experiences 
and understanding of the ordinary man. 

In the beginnings of literary development, lyric poetry 
gives expression to universal and obvious emotions. The 
joys of victpry, of love, of feasting, the sorrows of death and 
parting, — these are things which all men have felt, and 
which all can understand. But, in process of ages, as life 
grows more complex, and men more observant and self- 
conscious, less obvious shades of these joys and sorrows, 
subtle interminglings of them, new and unusual emotions 



INTR OD UC TION. Ixxx v 

connected with higher intellectual experiences, are repro- 
duced by the lyric poet. For the singing of many of the 
substantial joys and sorrows of humanity, Shelley was not 
specially qualified either by temperament or by experience. 
His abnormal physical and mental constitution made him 
much less fit for such a task than many of his predecessors. 
On the other hand, the peculiarities and intensity of his 
nature did furnish him with the experience which fitted him 
to be the exponent of more subtle and impalpable states of 
mind. More particularly, his feeble hold on reality, his dis- 
content with existing things, the disposition to take refuge 
from them in the realm of his own thoughts and fancies, 
enabled him to write of the feelings connected with the ideal, 
the remote, the impalpable. In the substantial present Shel- 
ley did not much delight ; but the future, with its possibilities 
and its promise of perfections not yet realized, and the past, 
with that halo of imaginative beauty which does not belong 
to it when in our grasp, but which it wins as it recedes, — 
these were themes that suited his genius. We see this illus- 
trated when he writes of love. " No one," says Mr. Stop- 
ford Brooke, " has expressed so well the hopes and fears 
and fancies and dreams which the heart creates for its own 
pleasure and sorrow when it plays with love which it realizes 
within itself, but which it never means to realize without. 
. . . But still more perfect, and perhaps more beautiful 
than any other work of his, are the poems written in the 
realm of ideal Regret. Whenever he came close to earthly 
love, touched it, and then of his own will passed it by, it 
became, as he looked back upon it, ideal, and a part of that 
indefinite world he loved. The ineffable regret of having 
lost that which one did not choose to take is most marvel- 
lously, most passionately expressed by Shelley." Here, as 
elsewhere, he does not sing the joys of satisfaction, for he 
was never satisfied, but the yearnings of desire. Again, 



Ixxxvi INTRODUCTION. 

there are emotional sequences which are scarcely connected 
with anything actual, or, at least, with anything definitely 
realized, — such emotions as are expressed and aroused by 
music. These are too vague to be called thought or to be 
uttered as such, but Shelley is skilled in suggesting them in 
an indirect way, through analogies, imagery, and the music 
of verse. Again and again this power is illustrated in the 
Frometheus. Even when the feelings which he voices are 
based upon substantial experiences, Shelley is so wrapped 
up in the emotion that he neglects altogether, or vaguely 
indicates, the concrete causes. Hence such obscurity as we 
find in Julian a?id Maddalo, where the facts which would 
enable us to grasp the situation of the poor lunatic are 
withheld. " Facts," says Shelley, " are not what we want 
to know in poetry, in history, in the lives of individual men, 
in satire, or in panegyric. They are the mere divisions, the 
arbitrary points on which we hang, and to which we refer 
those delicate and evanescent hues of mind which language 
delights and instructs us in proportion as it expresses." 
All this gives a vagueness to Shelley's poetry which almost 
forbids analysis or reduction to a kernel of solid fact. The 
hard-headed man who may be able to appreciate the good 
sense and accurate observation enshrined in the plays of 
Shakespeare, but who has little experience of or care for the 
subtle feelings and vague aspirations belonging to imagina- 
tive and emotional natures, and on whom the purely technical 
graces of verse have but little effect, turns aside from the 
poetry of Shelley as meaningless rhetoric. 

Shelley's love for the ideal and the vague influences his 
treatment of material nature. Here, with a tendency analo- 
gous to that exhibited in his treatment of human life, he 
turns from scenery of an ordinary character to the unusual, 
gigantic, and mysterious, — -huge cliffs, vast mountains, dark 
■woods and caves. Indeed, much of the scenery of his 



INTRODUCTION. Ixxxvii 

poems is not, strictly speaking, 7iatHral scenery. It is 
scenery whose elements are, of course, taken from nature ; 
but these are magnified and brought together in novel com- 
binations, with the purpose, not so much of reproducing or 
suggesting nature as of reflecting or symbolizing the poet's 
feelings, or of forming a suitable background for them. 
Not that Shelley always does this ; he can also bring before 
us vivid pictures of actual nature, — a gift which belonged 
to all the great poets of his time. But here he has his own 
special sphere. The aspects of nature which he excels in 
rendering are those, as Mr. Stopford Brooke has pointed 
out, of a vast, indefinite, or changeful character, — the 
scenery of the sky, of storm and cloud, of sunset and sun- 
rise, or of wide landscapes like that "which the poet in 
Alastor looks upon from the edge of a mountain precipice." 
He delighted in scenery reflected in the water; the softened, 
impalpable, and suggestive character of the image, as com- 
pared with the scene of which it is the reflection, is analo- 
gous to the difference between the ideal and the actual. 

In another and very different way, Shelley introduces 
nature in his poetry. There is a stage in the development 
of the race in which men commonly conceive all active 
things in the world as beings with a conscious life of their 
own. This is the mythopoeic tendency which plays so im- 
portant a part in early religion and fable. As men advance, 
the faculty for so conceiving things falls into abeyance. 
More profound and philosophic theories as to the forces 
which we see about us, displace this simple method of ac- 
counting for the universe. But in children the old tendency 
remains ; we see it strikingly iflustrated in the story of a 
poet's childhood, which Browning tells in Sordcllo. Shelley, 
who was childlike in so many respects, — in his impetuosity, 
simplicity, and ignorance of the world, — and who had no 
sense of the immanence of a personal force manifesting itself 



Ixxxviii INTRODUCTION. 

in all the phenomena of the universe, possessed this mytho- 
poiic faculty to a degree unparalleled among later poets. In- 
stead of using nature as a basis for meditation on human life 
or as a medium to reflect his own moods, instead of seeing 
in its phenomena, as does Wordsworth, the workings of one 
divine being, Shelley is frequently content, for the nonce, 
to look upon various objects in nature as independent 
beings, each leading its own conscious life. He sympa- 
thizes with such an entity, and describes its imaginary expe- 
riences, as another poet might enter into and describe the 
life of a fellow-man. He does this in The Cloudy in Are- 
t/uisa, and repeatedly in the Prometheus, in the case of such 
characters as "The Earth" and "The Moon." Perhaps 
the most extreme case of the exercise of this faculty is that 
afforded by The Witch of Atlas, where he describes, not the 
personification of an abstract quality or of a natural object, 
but a purely fanciful being. In this poem he finds pleasure 
in his own creations without desire to bring them to bear 
upon human life, or to give them anything which ordinary 
men would call a meaning. 

As the peculiarities of Shelley's mind and temperament 
leave their impress upon the general character of the sub- 
stance of his writings, so they determine the peculiarities of 
his form and style. His defective grasp of the concrete and 
real is unfavorable to the structure of his poems. His 
stories lack narrative force ; his thought, consecutive devel- 
opment. This is one of the reasons why he is less suc- 
cessful in his longer and more ambitious works. Further, 
the abstract ideas which he conveys in most of these longer 
poems do not lend themselves to the concrete expression 
which poetry demands. Accordingly, he almost necessarily 
resorts to allegory and symbolism, as is illustrated by Alastor 
and P}'ometheus ; and allegory and symbolism chill the normal 
reader. In the men and women of Romeo and Juliet or of 



INTRODUCTION. Ixxxix 

Hamlet we are naturally interested ; they are creatures like 
ourselves. But it is only by an effort that we can over- 
come our initial distaste for the personified abstractions of 
the Prometheus. 
' As to his expression in a narrower sense, — add to what 
we have already noted in Shelley's mental constitution, an 
extraordinarily lavish endowment of specifically poetic gifts, 
— skill in language, imagery, and versification, — we have 
the main factors in his style. We do not expect in him the 
qualities which arise from untiring self-criticism, from respect 
to the accepted canons of poetic art, such as we find in a 
workman like Tennyson. Shelley writes under the influence 
of the poetic afflatus. He is content if he gives expression 
to his feelings and ideas, without being careful to note occa- 
sional defects in logical structure, in grammatical concord, 
in congruity of images, in the regularity of his prosody. 
Here, as in more practical matters, he sometimes lacks self- 
restraint. He does not sufficiently condense ; he is carried 
on by the flow of language and imagery until thought is 
obscured or lost in musical words. But amends are made 
for occasional faults of this character by a spontaneous 
felicity, an unsought and unconventional grace to which a 
more conscious and less ardent artist could not have attained. 
This happiness is perhaps most easily noted in versification. 
As the unimaginative spirit wfll fail to appreciate Shelley's 
poetry in general, so will the pedantic student of metre who 
depends upon his fingers and his rules, fail to appreciate 
the subtle and varied music of Shelley's lines. 

As to this and other matters in regard to his style, we 
cannot do better than quote the words of Professor Baynes : ^ 
" This uncritical negligence, the want of minute accuracy in 
the details of his verse, seems to us intimately connected 

'^Edinburgh Review, April, 187 1; quoted in Mr. Forman's Preface 
to his edition of Shelley. 



xc INTRODUCTION. 

with the whole character of Shelley's mind, and especially 
with the lyrical sweep and intensity of his poetical genius. 
He had an intellect of the rarest delicacy and analytical 
strength, that intuitively perceived the most remote analo- 
gies and discriminated with spontaneous precision the finest 
shades of sensibility, the subtilest differences of perception 
and emotion. He possessed a swift, soaring, and prolific 
imagination, that clothed every thought and feeling with im- 
agery in the moment of its birth and instinctively read the spir- 
itual meanings of material symbols. His fineness of sense was 
so exquisite that eye and ear and touch became, as it were, 
organs and inlets, not merely of sensitive apprehension, but 
of intellectual beauty and ideal truth. Every nerve in his 
slight but vigorous frame seemed to vibrate in unison with 
the deeper life of nature in the world around him, and, like 
the wandering harp, he was swept to music by every breath 
of material beauty, every gust of poetic emotion. Above 
all, he had a strength of intellectual passion and a depth of 
ideal sympathy that in moments of excitement fused all the 
powers of his mind into a continuous stream of creative 
energy, and gave the stamp of something like inspiration to 
all the higher productions of his muse. His very method 
of composition reflects these characteristics of his mind. 
He seems to have been urged by a sort of irresistible 
impulse to write, and displayed a vehement and passionate 
absorption in the work that recalls the old traditions of poeti- 
cal frenzy and divine possession. His conceptions crowded 
so thickly upon him, were embodied in such exquisite verbal 
forms, and so enriched by illustrations flashed from remote 
and multiplied centres of association that while the fever 
lasted his whole nature was carried impetuously forward on 
a full tide of mingled music and imagery. From this exuber- 
ance of poetical power some of his critics have reproached 
him with accumulating image upon image, without pausing 



INTRODUCTION. XCl 

to select, discriminate, or contrast them. And it is no doubt 
true that there are passages in which metaphors and similes 
are heaped upon each other in almost dazzling profusion. 
But even in his most opulent and ornate descriptions there 
is hardly a trace of conscious labor or deliberate effort. . . . 
His finest passages have a witchery of aerial music, an ex- 
quisiteness of ideal beauty, and a white intensity of spiritual 
passion. . . . But the very qualities of mind and heart out 
of which these perfections spring carry with them the condi- 
tions of relative imperfections in the minor details of his 
work. The lyrical depth and impetuosity of feeling which 
carries Shelley on and gives such freedom and grace to the 
poetical movements of his kindled thought is unfavorable to 
perfect smoothness and accuracy in the mechanical details 
of his verse. He was often, in fact, too completely absorbed 
in the glorious substance of his poetry to give any minute 
attention to subordinate points of form. Thus, although 
from native fineness of ear his lines are never unrhythmical, 
the rhyme is often defective, and sometimes the metre as 
well. And, while his thought, even in its most subtle 
requirements, is always lucid, the expression, from haste or 
extreme condensation, is sometimes far from being clear," 



SELECTED POEMS 



ALASTOR ; 

OR, 

THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 



PREFACE. 

The poem entitled " Alastor " may be considered as 
allegorical of one of the most interesting situations of the 
human mind. It represents a youth of uncorrupted feelings 
and adventurous genius led forth by an imagination inflamed 
and purified through familiarity with all that is excellent and 5 
majestic, to the contemplation of the universe. He drinks 
deep of the fountains of knowledge, and is still insatiate. 
The magnificence and beauty of the external world sinks 
profoundly into the frame of his conceptions, and affords to 
their modifications a variety not to be exhausted. So long 10 
as it is possible for his desires to point towards objects thus 
infinite and unmeasured, he is joyous, and tranquil, and self- 
possessed. But the period arrives when these objects cease to 
suffice. His mind is at length suddenly awakened and thirsts 
for intercourse with an intelligence similar to itself. He images 15 
to himself the Being whom he loves. Conversant with specu- 
lations of the sublimest and most perfect natures, the vision in 
which he embodies his own imaginations unites all of wonder- 
ful, or wise, or beautiful, which the poet, the philosopher, or 
the lover could depicture. The intellectual faculties, the 20 



2 PREFACE. 

imagination, the functions of sense, have their respective 
requisitions on the sympathy of corresponding powers in other 
human beings. The Poet is represented as uniting these 
requisitions, and attaching them to a single image. He seeks 
5 in vain for a prototype of his conception. Blasted by his 
disappointment, he descends to an untimely grave. 

The picture is not barren of instruction to actual men. 
The Poet's self-centred seclusion was avenged by the furies of 
an irresistible passion pursuing him to speedy ruin. But that 

lo Power which strikes the luminaries of the world with sudden 
darkness and extinction, by awakening them to too exquisite a 
perception of its influences, dooms to a slow and poisonous 
decay those meaner spirits that dare to abjure its dominion. 
Their destiny is more abject and inglorious as their delinquency 

15 is more contemptible and pernicious. They who, deluded by 
no generous error, instigated by no sacred thirst of doubtful 
knowledge, duped by no illustrious superstition, loving nothing 
on this earth, and cherishing no hopes beyond, yet keep aloof 
from sympathies with their kind, rejoicing neither in human joy 

20 nor mourning with human grief ; these, and such as they, have 
their apportioned curse. They languish, because none feel with 
them their common nature. They are morally dead. They 
are neither friends, nor lovers, nor fathers, nor citizens of the 
world, nor benefactors of their country. Among those who 

25 attempt to exist without human sympathy, the pure and tender- 
hearted perish through the intensity and passion of their search 
after its communities, when the vacancy of their spirit suddenly 
makes itself felt. All else, selfish, blind, and torpid, are those 
unforeseeing multitudes who constitute, together with their own, 

30 the lasting misery and loneliness of the world. Those who love 
not their fellow-beings, live unfruitful lives, and prepare for 
their old age a miserable grave. 

The good die first, 
And those whose hearts are dry as summer dust, 
35 Burn to the socket ! 

December 14, 181 5. 



A LAS TOR. 3 

ALASTOR ; 

OR, . , 

THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 

Nondum amabam, et amare amabam, quaerebam quid amarem, 
amans amare. — Confess. St. A2igust. 

Earth, ocean, air, beloved brotherhood ! 

If our great Mother has imbued my soul 

With aught of natural piety to feel 

Your love, and recompense the boon with mine; 

If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even, 5 

With sunset and its gorgeous ministers, 

And solemn midnight's tingling silentness ; 

If autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood. 

And winter robing with pure snow and crowns 

Of starry ice the gray grass and bare boughs ; lo 

If spring's voluptuous pantings when she breathes 

Her first sweet kisses, have been dear to me ; 

If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast 

I consciously have injured, but still loved 

And cherished these my kindred; then forgive 15 

This boast, beloved brethren, and withdraw 

No portion of your wonted favour now ! 

Mother of this unfathomable world! 
Favour my solemn song, for I have loved 
Thee ever, and thee only; I have watched 20 

Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps. 
And my heart ever gazes on the depth 
Of thy deep mysteries. I have made my bed 
In charnels and on coffins, where black death 
Keeps record of the trophies won from thee, 25 



4 SELECTED POEMS. 

Hoping to still these obstinate questionings 

Of thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghost, 

Thy messenger, to render up the tale 

Of what we are. In lone and silent hours, 

When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness, 30 

Like an inspired and desperate alchymist 

Staking his very life on some dark hope. 

Have I mixed awful talk and asking looks 

With my most innocent love, until strange tears 

Uniting with those breathless kisses, made 35 

Such magic as compels the charmed night 

To render up thy charge : . . . and, though ne'er yet 

Thou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary. 

Enough from incommunicable dream. 

And twilight phantasms, and deep noonday thought, 40 

Has shone within me, that serenely now 

And moveless, as a long-forgotten lyre 

Suspended in the solitary dome 

Of some mysterious and deserted fane, 

I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain 45 

May modulate with murmurs of the air, 

And motions of the forests and the sea, 

And voice of living beings, and woven hymns 

Of night and day, and the deep heart of man. 

There was a Poet whose untimely tomb 5° 

No human hands with pious reverence reared, 
But the charmed eddies of autumnal winds 
Built o'er his mouldering bones a pyramid 
Of mouldering leaves in the waste wilderness: — 
A lovely youth, — no mourning maiden decked 55 

With weeping flowers, or votive cypress wreath, 
The lone couch of his everlasting sleep: — 
Gentle, and brave, and generous, — no lorn bard 



ALASTOR. 5 

Breathed o'er his dark fate one melodious sigh : 

He lived, he died, he sung, in solitude. 60 

Strangers have wept to hear his passionate notes, 

And virgins, as unknown he passed, have pined 

And wasted for fond love of his wild eyes. 

The fire of those soft orbs has ceased to burn. 

And Silence, too enamoured of that voice, 65 

Locks its mute music in her rugged cell. 

By solemn vision, and bright silver dream, 
His infancy was nurtured. Every sight 
And sound from the vast earth and ambient air, 
Sent to his heart its choicest impulses. 70 

The fountains of divine philosophy 
Fled not his thirsting lips, and all of great. 
Or good, or lovely, which the sacred past 
In truth or fable consecrates, he felt 

And knew. When early youth had passed, he left 75 

His cold fireside and alienated home 
To seek strange truths in undiscovered lands. 
Many a wide waste and tangled wilderness 
Has lured his fearless steps ; and he has bought 
With his sweet voice and eyes, from savage men, 80 

His rest and food. Nature's most secret steps 
He like her shadow has pursued, where'er 
The red volcano overcanopies 
Its fields of snow and pinnacles of ice 

With burning smoke, or where bitumen lakes 85 

On black bare pointed islets ever beat 
With sluggish surge, or where the secret caves 
Rugged and dark, winding among the springs 
Of fire and poison, inaccessible 

To avarice or pride, their starry domes 9° 

Of diamond and of gold expand above 



6 SELECTED POEMS. 

Numberless and immeasurable halls, 

Frequent with crystal column, and clear shrines 

Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite. 

Nor had that scene of ampler majesty 95 

Than gems or gold, the varying roof of heaven 

And the green earth, lost in his heart its claims 

To love and wonder ; he would linger long 

In lonesome vales, making the wild his home, 

Until the doves and squirrels would partake loo 

P>om his innocuous hand his bloodless food, 

Lured by the gentle meaning of his looks, 

And the wild antelope, that starts whene'er 

The dry leaf rustles in the brake, suspend 

Her timid steps to gaze upon a form 105 

More graceful than her own. 

His wandering step, 
Obedient to high thoughts, has visited 
The awful ruins of the days of old : 
Athens, and Tyre, and Balbec, and the waste 
Where stood Jerusalem, the fallen towers no 

Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids, 
Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of strange 
Sculptured on alabaster obelisk, 
Or jasper tomb, or mutilated sphynx. 

Dark .^ithiopia in her desert hills 115 

Conceals. Among the ruined temples there. 
Stupendous columns, and wild images 
Of more than man, where marble daemons watch 
The Zodiac's brazen mystery, and dead men 
Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around, 120 
He lingered, poring on memorials 
Of the world's youth, through the long burning day 
Gazed on those speechless shapes, nor, wdien the moon 
Filled the mysterious halls with floating shades, 



ALASTOR. 7 

Suspended he that task, but ever gazed 125 

And gazed, till meaning on his vacant mind 
Flashed like strong inspiration, and he saw 
The thrilling secrets of the birth of time. 

Meanwhile an Arab maiden brought his food. 
Her daily portion, from her father's tent, 130 

And spread her matting for his couch, and stole 
From duties and repose to tend his steps: — 
Enamoured, yet not daring for deep awe 
To speak her love: — and watched his nightly sleep. 
Sleepless herself, to gaze upon his lips 135 

Parted in slumber, whence the regular breath 
Of innocent dreams arose: then, when red morn 
Made paler the pale moon, to her cold home 
Wildered, and wan, and panting, she returned. 

The Poet wandering on, through Arable 140 

And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste, 
And o'er the aerial mountains which pour down 
Indus and Oxus from their icy caves, 
In joy and exultation held his way; 

Till in the vale of Cashmire, far within 145 

Its loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine 
Beneath the hollow rocks a natural bower. 
Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretched 
His languid limbs. A vision on his sleep 
There came, a dream of hopes that never yet 150 

Had flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veiled maid 
Sate near him, talking in low solemn tones. 
Her voice was like the voice of his own soul 
Heard in the calm of thought; its music long, 
Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held i55 

His inmost sense suspended in its web 
Of many-coloured woof and shifting hues. 



g SELECTED POEMS. 

Knowledge and truth and virtue were her theme, 

And lofty hopes of divine liberty, 

Thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy, i6o 

Herself a poet. Soon the solemn mood 

Of her pure mind kindled through all her frame 

A permeating fire : wild numbers then 

She raised, with voice stifled in tremulous sobs 

Subdued by its own pathos: her fair hands 165 

Were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harp 

Strange symphony, and in their branching veins 

The eloquent blood told an ineffable tale. 

The beating of her heart was heard to fill 

The pauses of her music, and her breath 170 

Tumultuously accorded with those fits 

Of intermitted song. Sudden she rose. 

As if her heart impatiently endured 

Its bursting burthen : at the sound he turned, 

And saw by the warm light of their own life i75 

Her glowing limbs beneath the sinuous veil 

Of woven wind, her outspread arms now bare, 

Her dark locks floating in the breath of night, 

Her beamy bending eyes, her parted hps 

Outstretched, and pale, and quivering eagerly. 180 

His strong heart sunk and sickened with excess 

Of love. He reared his shuddering limbs and quelled 

His gasping breath, and spread his arms to meet 

Her panting bosom : . . . she drew back a while. 

Then, yielding to the irresistible joy, 185 

With frantic gesture and short breathless cry 

Folded his frame in her dissolving arms. 

Now blackness veiled his dizzy eyes, and night 

Involved and swallowed up the vision ; sleep. 

Like a dark flood suspended in its course, 190 

Rolled back its impulse on his vacant brain. 



A LAS TOR. g 

Roused by the shock he started from his trance — 
The cold white light of morning, the blue moon 
Low in the west, the clear and garish hills, 
The distinct valley and the vacant woods, 195 

Spread round him where he stood. Whither have fled 
The hues of heaven that canopied his bower 
Of yesternight ? The sounds that soothed his sleep, 
The mystery and the majesty of Earth, 

The joy, the exultation? His wan eyes 200 

Gaze on the empty scene as vacantly 
As ocean's moon looks on the moon in heaven. 
The spirit of sweet human love has sent 
A vision to the sleep of him who spurned 
Her choicest gifts. He eagerly pursues 205 

Beyond the realms of dream that fleeting shade ; 
He overleaps the bounds. Alas ! alas ! 
Were limbs, and breath, and being intertwined 
Thus treacherously? Lost, lost, for ever lost, 
In the wide pathless desert of dim sleep, 210 

That beautiful shape ! Does the dark gate of death 
Conduct to thy mysterious paradise, 
O Sleep? Does the bright arch of rainbow clouds, 
And pendent mountains seen in the calm lake. 
Lead only to a black and watery depth, 215 

While death's blue vault, with loathliest vapours hung. 
Where every shade which the foul grave exhales 
Hides its dead eye from the detested day. 
Conduct, O Sleep, to thy delightful realms? 
This doubt with sudden tide flowed on his heart, 220 

The insatiate hope which it awakened stung 
His brain even like despair. 

While day-light held 
The sky, the Poet kept mute conference 
With his still soul. At night the passion came. 



lo SELECTED POEMS. 

Like the fierce fiend of a distempered dream, 225 

And shook him from his rest, and led him forth 

Into the darkness. — As an eagle grasped 

In folds of the green serpent, feels her breast 

Burn with the poison, and precipitates 

Through night and day, tempest, and calm, and cloud, 230 

Frantic with dizzying anguish, her blind flight 

O'er the wide aery wilderness: thus driven 

By the bright shadow of that lovely dream. 

Beneath the cold glare of the desolate night. 

Through tangled swamps and deep precipitous dells, 235 

Startling with careless step the moon-light snake. 

He fled. Red morning dawned upon his flight, 

Shedding the mockery of its vital hues 

Upon his cheek of death. He wandered on 

Till vast Aornos seen from Petra's steep 240 

Hung o'er the low horizon like a cloud ; 

Through Balk, and where the desolated tombs 

Of Parthian kings scatter to every wind 

Their wasting dust, wildly he wandered on. 

Day after day, a weary waste of hours, 245 

Bearing within his life the brooding care 

That ever fed on its decaying flame. 

And now his limbs were lean; his scattered hair 

Sered by the autumn of strange suffering 

Sung dirges in the wind; his listless hand 250 

Hung like dead bone within its withered skin ; 

Life, and the lustre that consumed it, shone 

As in a furnace burning secretly 

From his dark eyes alone. The cottagers. 

Who ministered with human charity 255 

His human wants, beheld with wondering awe 

Their fleeting visitant. The mountaineer. 

Encountering on some dizzy precipice 



ALASTOK. 1 1 

That spectral form, deemed that the Spirit of wind 

With Hghtning eyes, and eager breath, and feet 260 

Disturbing not the drifted snow, had paused 

In its career : the infant would conceal 

His troubled visage in his mother's robe 

In terror at the glare of those wild eyes. 

To remember their strange light in many a dream 265 

Of after-times ; but youthful maidens, taught 

By nature, would interpret half the woe 

That wasted him, would call him with false names 

Brother, and friend, would press his pallid hand 

At parting, and watch, dim through tears, the path 270 

Of his departure from their father's door. 

At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore 
He paused, a wide and melancholy waste 
Of putrid marshes. A strong impulse urged 
His steps to the sea-shore. A swan was there, 275 

Beside a sluggish stream among the reeds. 
It rose as he approached, and wath strong wings 
Scaling the upward sky, bent its bright course 
High over the immeasurable main. 

His eyes pursued its flight. — "Thou hast a home, 280 

Beautiful bird; thou voyagest to thine home. 
Where thy sweet mate will twine her downy neck 
With thine, and welcome thy return with eyes 
Bright in the lustre of their own fond joy. 
And what am I that I should linger here, 285 

With voice far sweeter than thy dying notes, 
Spirit more vast than thine, frame more attuned 
To beauty, wasting these surpassing powers 
In the deaf air, to the blind earth, and heaven 
That echoes not my thoughts?" A gloomy smile 290 

Of desperate hope wrinkled his quivering lips. 



12 SELECTED POEMS. 

For sleep, he knew, kept most relentlessly 

Its precious charge, and silent death exposed, 

Faithless perhaps as sleep, a shadowy lure. 

With doubtful smile mocking its own strange charms. 295 

Startled by his own thoughts he looked around. 
There was no fair fiend near him, not a sight 
Or sound of awe but in his own deep mind. 
A little shallop floating near the shore 

Caught the impatient wandering of his gaze. 300 

It had been long abandoned, for its sides 
Gaped wdde with many a rift, and its frail joints 
Swayed with the undulations of the tide. 
A restless impulse urged him to embark 
And meet lone Death on the drear ocean's waste ; 3^5 

For well he knew that mighty Shadow loves 
The slimy caverns of the populous deep. 

The day was fair and sunny, sea and sky 
Drank its inspiring radiance, and the wind 
Swept strongly from the shore, blackening the waves. 3^0 
Following his eager soul, the wanderer 
Leaped in the boat, he spread his cloak aloft 
On the bare mast, and took his lonely seat. 
And felt the boat speed o'er the tranquil sea 
Like a torn cloud before the hurricane. 3^5 

As one that in a silver vision floats 
Obedient to the sweep of odorous winds 
Upon resplendent clouds, so rapidly 
Along the dark and ruffled waters fled 

The straining boat. — A whirlwind swept it on, 320 

With fierce gusts and precipitating force, 
Through the white ridges of the chafed sea. 
The waves arose. Higher and higher still 



ALASrOR. 13 

Their fierce necks writhed beneath the tempest's scourge 

Like serpents struggling in a vulture's grasp. 325 

Calm and rejoicing in the fearful war 

Of wave ruining on wave, and blast on blast 

Descending, and black flood on whirlpool driven 

With dark obliterating course, he sate : 

As if their genii were the ministers 33° 

Appointed to conduct him to the light 

Of those beloved eyes, the Poet sate 

Holding the steady helm. Evening came on, 

The beams of sunset hung their rainbow hues 

High 'mid the shifting domes of sheeted spray 335 

That canopied his path o'er the waste deep; 

Twilight, ascending slowly from the east, 

Entwined in duskier wreaths her braided locks 

O'er the fair front and radiant eyes of day; 

Night followed, clad with stars. On every side 34o 

More horribly the multitudinous streams 

Of ocean's mountainous waste to mutual war 

Rushed in dark tumult thundering, as to mock 

The calm and spangled sky. The little boat 

Still fled before the storm; still fled, like foam 345 

Down the steep cataract of a wintry river ; 

Now pausing on the edge of the riven wave ; 

Now leaving far behind the bursting mass 

That fell, convulsing ocean. Safely fled — 

As if that frail and wasted human form, 35^ 

Had been an elemental god. 

At midnight 

The moon arose: and lo! the aetherial cliffs 

Of Caucasus, whose icy summits shone 

Among the stars like sunlight, and around 

Whose caverned base the whirlpools and the waves 355 

Bursting and eddying irresistibly 



14 SELECTED POEMS. 

Rage and resound for ever. — Who shall save? — 

The boat fled on, — the boiling torrent drove, — 

The crags closed round with black and jagged arms, 

The shattered mountain overhung the sea, 360 

And faster still, beyond all human speed. 

Suspended on the sweep of the smooth wave, 

The little boat was driven. A cavern there 

Yawned, and amid its slant and winding depths 

Ingulphed the rushing sea. The boat fled on 365 

With unrelaxing speed. — "Vision and Love!" 

The Poet cried aloud, "I have beheld 

The path of thy departure. Sleep and death 

Shall not divide us long!" 

The boat pursued 
The windings of the cavern. Day-light shone yi^ 

At length upon that gloomy river's flow; 
Now, where the fiercest war among the waves 

Is calm, on the unfathomable stream 

The boat moved slowly. Where the mountain, riven, 

Exposed those black depths to the azure sky, 375 

Ere yet the flood's enormous volume fell 

Even to the base of Caucasus, with sound 

That shook the everlasting rocks, the mass 

Filled with one whirlpool all that ample chasm; 

Stair above stair the eddying waters rose 38° 

Circling immeasurably fast, and laved 

With alternating dash the knarled roots 

Of mighty trees, that stretched their giant arms 

In darkness over it. F the midst was left. 

Reflecting, yet distorting every cloud, 3^5 

A pool of treacherous and tremendous calm. 

Seized by the sway of the ascending stream, 

With dizzy swiftness, round, and round, and round. 

Ridge after ridge the straining boat arose. 



A LAS TOR. 15 

Till on the verge of the extremest curve, 390 

Where through an opening of the rocky bank, 

The waters overflow, and a smooth spot 

Of glassy quiet 'mid those battling tides 

Is left, the boat paused shuddering. — Shall it sink 

Down the abyss ? Shall the reverting stress 395 

Of that resistless gulph embosom it ? 

Now shall it fall ? — A wandering stream of wind. 

Breathed from the west, has caught the expanded sail 

And, lo! with gentle motion, between banks 

Of mossy slope, and on a placid stream, 400 

Beneath a woven grove it sails, and, hark! 

The ghastly torrent mingles its far roar. 

With the breeze murmuring in the musical woods. 

Where the embowering trees recede, and leave 

A little space of green expanse, the cove 405 

Is closed by meeting banks, whose yellow flowers 

For ever gaze on their own drooping eyes. 

Reflected in the crystal calm. The wave 

Of the boat's motion marred their pensive task. 

Which nought but vagrant bird, or wanton wind, 410 

Or falling spear-grass, or their own decay 

Had e'er disturbed before. The Poet longed 

To deck with their bright hues his withered hair, 

But on his heart its solitude returned, 

And he forbore. Not the strong impulse hid 4^5 

In those flushed cheeks, bent eyes, and shadowy frame 

Had yet performed its ministry: it hung 

Upon his life, as lightning in a cloud 

Gleams, hovering ere it vanish, ere the floods 

Of night close over it. / 

The noonday sun 420 

Now shone upon the forest, one vast mass 
Of mingling shade, whose brown magnificence 



1 6 SELECTED POEMS. 

A narrow vale embosoms. There, huge caves, 

Scooped in the dark base of their aery rocks 

Mocking its moans, respond and roar for ever. 425 

The meeting boughs and implicated leaves 

Wove twilight o'er the Poet's path, as led 

By love, or dream, or god, or mightier Death, 

He sought in Nature's dearest haunt, some bank, 

Her cradle, and his sepulchre. More dark 43° 

And dark the shades accumulate. The oak, 

Expanding its immense and knotty arms. 

Embraces the light beech. The pyramids 

Of tlie tall cedar overarching, frame 

Most solemn domes within, and far below, 435 

Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky. 

The ash and the acacia floating hang 

Tremulous and pale. Like restless serpents, clothed 

In rainbow and in fire, the parasites. 

Starred with ten thousand blossoms, flow around 44° 

The gray trunks, and, as gamesome infants' eyes. 

With gentle meanings, and most innocent wiles, 

Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love. 

These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs 

Uniting their close union; the woven leaves 445 

Make net-work of the dark blue light of day, 

And the night's noontide clearness, mutable 

As shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawns 

Beneath these canopies extend their swells. 

Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms 45° 

Minute yet beautiful. One darkest glen 

Sends from its woods of musk-rose, twined with jasmine, 

A soul-dissolving odour, to invite 

To some more lovely mystery. Through the dell, 

Silence and Twilight here, twin-sisters, keep 455 

Their noonday watch, and sail among the shades, 



ALASTOR. 17 

Like vaporous shapes half seen ; beyond, a well, 

Dark, gleaming, and of most translucent wave. 

Images all the woven boughs above. 

And each depending leaf, and every speck 460 

Of azure sky, darting between their chasms; 

Nor aught else in the liquid mirror laves 

Its portraiture, but some inconstant star 

Between one foliaged lattice twinkling fair, 

Or, painted bird, sleeping beneath the moon, 465 

Or gorgeous insect floating motionless. 

Unconscious of the day, ere yet his wings. 

Have spread their glories to the gaze of noon. 

Hither the Poet came. His eyes beheld 
Their own wan light through the reflected lines 47o 

Of his thin hair, distinct in the dark depth 
Of that still fountain ; as the human heart, 
Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave. 
Sees its own treacherous likeness there. He heard 
The motion of the leaves, the grass that sprung 475 

Startled and glanced and trembled even to feel 
An unaccustomed presence, and the sound 
Of the sweet brook that from the secret springs 
Of that dark fountain rose. A Spirit seemed 
To stand beside him — clothed in no bright robes 480 

Of shadowy silver or enshrining light. 
Borrowed from aught the visible world affords 
Of grace, or majesty, or mystery; — 
But, undulating woods, and silent well. 

And leaping rivulet, and evening gloom 485 

Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming. 
Held commune with him, as if he and it 
Were all that was, — only . . . when his regard 
Was raised by intense pensiveness, ... two eyes, 



1 8 SELECTED POEMS. 

Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought, 490 

And seemed with their serene and azure smiles 
To beckon him. 

Obedient to the light 
That shone within his soul, he went, pursuing 
The windings of the dell. — The rivulet 
Wanton and wild, through many a green ravine 495 

Beneath the forest flowed. Sometimes it fell 
Among the moss with hollow harmony 
Dark and profound. Now on the polished stones 
It danced ; like childhood laughing as it went : 
Then, through the plain in tranquil wanderings crept, 500 
Reflecting every herb and drooping bud 
That overhung its quietness. — "O stream! 
Whose source is inaccessibly profound, 
Whither do thy mysterious waters tend t 
Thou imagest my life. Thy darksome stillness, 505 

Thy dazzling waves, thy loud and hollow gulphs. 
Thy searchless fountain, and invisible course 
Have each their type in me: and the wide sky, 
And measureless ocean may declare as soon 
What oozy cavern or what wandering cloud 510 

Contains thy waters, as the universe 
Tell where these living thoughts reside, when stretched 
Upon thy flowers my bloodless limbs shall waste 
r the passing wind!" 

Beside the grassy shore 
Of the small stream he went; he did impress 5^5 

On the green moss his tremulous step, that caught 
Strong shuddering from his burning limbs. As one 
Roused by some joyous madness from the couch 
Of fever, he did move ; yet, not like him, 
Forgetful cf the grave, where, when the flame 520 

Of his frail exultation shall be spent. 



A LAS TOR. 19 

He must descend. With rapid steps he went 

Beneath the shade of trees, beside the flow 

Of the wild babbling rivulet ; and now 

The forest's solemn canopies were changed 525 

For the uniform and lightsome evening sky. 

Gray rocks did peep from the spare moss, and stemmed 

The struggling brook: tall spires of windlestrae 

Threw their thin shadows down the rugged slope. 

And naught but knarled roots of ancient pines, 530 

Branchless and blasted, clenched with grasping roots 

The unwilling soil. A gradual change was here, 

Yet ghastly. For, as fast years flow away. 

The smooth brow gathers, and the hair grows thin 

And white, and where irradiate dewy eyes 535 

Had shone, gleam stony orbs: — so from his steps 

Bright flowers departed, and the beautiful shade 

Of the green groves, with all their odorous winds 

And musical motions. Calm, he still pursued 

The stream, that with a larger volume now 54° 

Rolled through the labyrinthine dell; and there 

Fretted a path through its descending curves 

With its wintry speed. On every side now rose 

Rocks, which, in unimaginable forms. 

Lifted their black and barren pinnacles 545 

In the light of evening, and its precipice 

Obscuring the ravine, disclosed above, 

'Mid toppling stones, black gulphs and yawning caves. 

Whose windings gave ten thousand various tongues 

To the loud stream. Lo! where the pass expands 55° 

Its stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks. 

And seems, with its accumulated crags. 

To overhang the world : for wide expand 

Beneath the wan stars and descending moon 

Islanded seas, blue mountains, mighty streams, 555 



2 SELECTED POEMS. 

Dim tracts and vast, robed in tlie lustrous gloom 

Of leaden-coloured even, and fiery hills 

Mingling their flames with twilight, on the verge 

Of the remote horizon. The near scene, 

In naked and severe simplicity, 560 

Made contrast with the universe. A pine, 

Rock-rooted, stretched athwart the vacancy 

Its swinging boughs, to each inconstant blast 

Yielding one only response, at each pause 

In most familiar cadence, with the howl, 5^5 

The thunder and the hiss of homeless streams 

Mingling its solemn song, whilst the broad river. 

Foaming and hurrying o'er its rugged path. 

Fell into that immeasurable void 

Scattering its waters to the passing winds. 57o 

Yet the gray precipice and solemn pine, 
And torrent, were not all; — one silent nook 
Was there. Even on the edge of that vast mountain, 
Upheld by knotty roots and fallen rocks. 
It overlooked in its serenity 575 

The dark earth, and the bending vault of stars. 
It was a tranquil spot, that seemed to smile 
Even in the lap of horror. Ivy clasped 
The fissured stones with its entwining arms. 
And did embower with leaves for ever green, 5S0 

And berries dark, the smooth and even space 
Of its in violated floor, and here 
The children of the autumnal whirlwind bore, 
In wanton sport, those bright leaves, whose decay. 
Red, yellow, or aetherially pale, 5*^5 

Rivals the pride of summer. 'T is the haunt 
Of every gentle wind, whose breath can teach 
The wilds to love tranquillity. One step. 



ALASTOR. 2 1 

One human step alone, has ever broken 

The stiUness of its sohtude : — one voice 59° 

Alone inspired its echoes ; — even that voice 

Which hither came, floating among the winds. 

And led the loveliest among human forms 

To make their wild haunts the depository 

Of all the grace and beauty that endued 595 

Its motions, render up its majesty, 

Scatter its music on the unfeeling storm. 

And to the damp leaves and blue cavern mould. 

Nurses of rainbow flowers and branching moss, 

Commit the colours of that varying cheek, 6oo 

That snowy breast, those dark and drooping eyes. 

The dim and horned moon hung low, and poured 
A sea of lustre on the horizon's verge 
That overflowed its mountains. Yellow mist 
Filled the unbounded atmosphere, and drank 605 

Wan moonlight even to fulness: not a star 
Shone, not a sound was heard ; the very winds. 
Danger's grim playmates, on that precipice 
Slept, clasped in his embrace. — O, storm of death ! 
Whose sightless speed divides this sullen night: 610 

And thou, colossal Skeleton, that, still 
Guiding its irresistible career 
In thy devastating omnipotence. 
Art king of this frail world, from the red field 
Of slaughter, from the reeking hospital, 615 

The patriot's sacred couch, the snowy bed 
Of innocence, the scaffold and the throne, 
A mighty voice invokes thee. Ruin calls 
His brother Death. A rare and regal prey 
He hath prepared, prowling around the world ; 620 

Glutted with which thou mayst repose, and men 



22 SELECTED POEMS. 

Go to their graves like flowers or creeping worms, 
Nor ever more offer at thy dark shrine 
The unheeded tribute of a broken heart. 

When on the threshold of the green recess 625 

The wanderer's footsteps fell, he knew that death 
Was on him. Yet a little, ere it fled, 
Did he resign his high and holy soul 
To images of the majestic past. 

That paused within his passive being now, 630 

Like winds that bear sweet music, when they breathe 
Through some dim latticed chamber. He did place 
His pale lean hand upon the rugged trunk 
Of the old pine. Upon an ivied stone 

Reclined his languid head, his limbs did rest, 635 

Diffused and motionless, on the smooth brink 
Of that obscurest chasm ; — and thus he lay. 
Surrendering to their final impulses 
The hovering powers of life. Hope and despair, 
The torturers, slept ; no mortal pain or fear 640 

Marred his repose, the influxes of sense. 
And his own being unalloyed by pain, 
Yet feebler and more feeble, calmly fed 
The stream of thought, till he lay breathing there 
At peace, and faintly smiling: — his last sight 645 

Was the great moon, which o'er the western line 
Of the wide world her mighty horn suspended, 
With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemed 
To mingle. Now upon the jagged hifls 
It rests, and still as the divided frame 650 

Of the vast meteor sunk, the Poet's blood, 
That ever beat in mystic sympathy 
With nature's ebb and flow, grew feebler still : 
And when two lessening points of light alone 



ALASTOR. 23 

Gleamed through the darkness, the alternate gasp 655 

Of his faint respiration scarce did stir 

The stagnate night: — till the minutest ray 

Was quenched, the pulse yet lingered in his heart. 

It paused — it fluttered. But when heaven remained 

Utterly black, the murky shades involved 660 

An image, silent, cold, and motionless, 

As their own voiceless earth and vacant air. 

Even as a vapour fed with golden beams 

That ministered on sunlight, ere the west 

Eclipses it,- was now that wondrous frame — 665 

No sense, no motion, no divinity — 

A fragile lute, on whose harmonious strings 

The breath of heaven did wander — a bright stream 

Once fed with many-voiced waves — a dream 

Of youth, which night and time have quenched for ever, 670 

Still, dark, and dry, and unremembered now. 

O, for Medea's wondrous alchemy, 
Which wheresoe'er it fell made the earth gleam 
With bright flowers, and the wintry boughs exhale 
From vernal blooms fresh fragrance ! O, that God, 675 

Profuse of poisons, would concede the chalice 
Which but one living man has drained, who now, 
Vessel of deathless wrath, a slave that feels 
No proud exemption in the blighting curse 
He bears, over the world wanders for ever, , 680 

Lone as incarnate death! O, that the dream 
Of dark magician in his visioned cave, 
Raking the cinders of a crucible 
For life and power, even when his feeble hand 
Shakes in its last decay, were the true law 685 

Of this so lovely world ! But thou art fled 
Like some frail exhalation ; which the dawn 



2 4 SELECTED POEMS. 

Robes in its golden beams, — ah! thou hast fled! 

The brave, the gentle, and the beautiful, 

The child of grace and genius. Heartless things 690 

Are done and said i' the world, and many worms 

And beasts and men live on, and mighty Earth 

From sea and mountain, city and wilderness. 

In vesper low or joyous orison. 

Lifts still its solemn voice : — but thou art fled — 695 

Thou canst no longer know or love the shapes 

Of this phantasmal scene, who have to thee 

Been purest ministers, who are, alas! 

Now thou art not. Upon those pallid lips 

So sweet even in their silence, on those eyes 700 

That image sleep in death, upon that form 

Yet safe from the worm's outrage, let no tear 

Be shed — not even in thought. Nor, when those hues 

Are gone, and those divinest lineaments. 

Worn by the senseless wind, shall live alone 705 

In the frail pauses of this simple strain. 

Let not high verse, mourning the memory 

Of that which is no more, or painting's woe 

Or sculpture, speak in feeble imagery 

Their own cold powers. Art and eloquence, 710 

And all the shows o' the world are frail and vain 

To weep a loss that turns their lights to shade. 

It is a woe too 'deep for tears,' when all 

Is reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit, 

Whose light adorned the world around it, leaves 715 

Those who remain behind, not sobs or groans, 

The passionate tumult of a clinging hope; 

But pale despair and cold tranquillity. 

Nature's vast frame, the web of human things, 

Birth and the grave, that are not as they were. 720 

Autumn, 181 5. 



A SUMMER-EVENING CHURCH-YARD. 25 

A SUMMER-EVENING CHURCH-YARD, 

Lechlade, Gloucestershire. 

The wind has swept from the wide atmosphere 
Each vapour that obscured the sunset's ray; 

And pallid evening twines its beaming hair 

In duskier braids around the languid eyes of day : 

Silence and twilight, unbeloved of men, 5 

Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen. 

They breathe their spells towards the departing day, 
Encompassing the earth, air, stars, and sea ; 

Light, sound, and motion own the potent sway. 

Responding to the charm with its own mystery. 10 

The winds are still, or the dry church-tower grass 

Knows not their gentle motions as they pass. 

Thou too, aerial Pile ! whose pinnacles 

Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire, 

Obeyest in silence their sweet solemn spells, ^5 

Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire. 

Around whose lessening and invisible height 

Gather among the stars the clouds of night. 

The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres : 

And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound 20 

Half sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs. 

Breathed from their wormy beds all living things around, 
And mingling with the still night and mute sky 
Its awful hush is felt inaudibly. 

Thus solemnized and softened, death is mild 25 

And terrorless as this serenest night : 
Here could I hope, like some enquiring child 



2 6 SELECTED POEMS. 

Sporting on graves, that death did hide from human sight 
Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep 
That loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep. 3° 

September, 1815. 



LINES. 
I. 



The cold earth slept below, 
Above the cold sky shone ; 
And all around, with a chilling sound. 
From caves of ice and fields of snow. 
The breath of night like death did flow 



'fc>' 



Beneath the sinkinsr moon. 



fc> 



The wintry hedge was black, 
The green grass was not seen. 
The birds did rest on the bare thorn's breast, 
Whose roots, beside the pathway track. 
Had bound their folds o'er many a crack, 
Which the frost had made between. 



Thine eyes glowed in the glare 

Of the moon's dying light ; 
As a fenfire's beam on a sluggish stream 15 

Gleams dimly, so the moon shone there, 
And it yellowed the strings of thy raven hair, 

That shook in the wind of night. 

IV. 

The moon made thy lips pale, beloved — 

The wind made thy bosom chill — 20 



TO WORDSWORTH. 27 

The night did shed on thy dear head 
Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie 
Where the bitter breath of the naked sky 
Might visit thee at will. 

November, 1S15. 



TO WORDSWORTH. 

Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know 

That things depart which never may return : 
Childhood and youth, friendship and love's first glow, 

Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn. 
These common woes I feel. One loss is mine 

Which thou too feel'st, yet I alone deplore. 
Thou wert as a lone star, whose light did shine 

On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar : 
Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood 
Above the blind and battling multitude : 
In honoured poverty thy voice did weave 

Songs consecrate to truth and liberty, — 
Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve. 

Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be. 

1816. 



10 



HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY. 



The awful shadow of some unseen Power 
Floats though unseen amongst us,^— visiting 
This various world with as inconstant wing 

As summer winds that creep from flower to flower, 



2 8 SELECTED POEMS. 



Like moonbeams that behind 'some piny mountain shower, 5 

It visits with inconstant glance 

Each human heart and countenance ; 
Like hues and harmonies of evening, — 

Like clouds in starlight widely spread, — 

Like memory of music fled, — lo 

Like aught that for its grace may be 
Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery. 



Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate 

With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon 

Of human thought or form, — where art thou gone ? 15 

Why dost thou pass away and leave our state. 

This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate ? 
Ask why the sunlight not for ever 
Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain river, 

Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown, 20 

Why fear and dream and death and birth 
Cast on the daylight of this earth 
Such gloom, — why man has such a scope 

For love and hate, despondency and hope ? 



No voice from some sublimer world hath ever 25 

To sage or poet these responses given — 
Therefore the names of Daemon, Ghost, and Heaven, 
Remain the records of their vain endeavour. 
Frail spells — whose uttered charm might not avail to sever, 

From all we hear and all we see, 3° 

Doubt, chance, and mutability. 
Thy light alone — like mist o'er mountains driven, 

Or music by the night wind sent, 

Through strings of some still instrument, 



HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY. 29 

Or moonlight on a midnight stream, 35 

Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream. 

IV. 

Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart 
And come, for some uncertain moments lent, 
Man were immortal, and omnipotent, 
Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, 40 

Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart. 

Thou messenger of sympathies. 

That wax and wane in lovers' eyes — 
Thou — that to human thought art nourishment, 

Like darkness to a dying flame ! 45 

Depart not as thy shadow came. 

Depart not — lest the grave should be, 
Like life and fear, a dark reality. 



While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped 

Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin, 5° 

And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing 
Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. 
I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed, 

I was not heard — I saw them not — 

When musing deeply on the lot 55 

Of life, at the sweet time when winds are wooing 

All vital things that wake to bring 

News of birds and blossoming, — 

Sudden, thy shadow fell on me ; 
I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy ! 60 

VI. 

I vowed that I would dedicate my powers 

To thee and thine — have I not kept the vow ? 
With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now 



30 SELECTED POEMS. 

I call the phantoms of a thousand hours 

Each from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowers 65 
Of studious zeal or love's delight 
Outwatched with me the envious night — 

They know that never joy illumed my brow 

Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free 

This world from its dark slavery, 7° 

That thou — O awful Loveliness, 

Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express. 



The day becomes more solemn and serene 
When noon is past — there is a harmony 
In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, 75 

Which through the summer is not heard or seen, 
As if it could not be, as if it had not been ! 
Thus let thy power, which like the truth 
Of nature on my passive youth 
Descended, to my onward life supply 80 

Its calm — to one who worships thee, 
And every form containing thee, 
W1iom, Spirit fair, thy spells did bind 
To fear himself, and love all human kind. 
Snm77ier, 18 16. 



ON FANNY GODWIN. 

Her voice did quiver as we parted, 

Yet knew I not that heart was broken 
From which it came, and I departed 
Heeding not the words then spoken. 
Misery — O Misery, 
This world is all too wide for thee. 



1817. 



LINES. — SONNE T. 3 ^ 



LINES. 



That time is dead for ever, child, 
Drowned, frozen, dead for ever ! 

We look on the past 

And stare aghast 
At the spectres wailing, pale and ghast. 
Of hopes which thou and T beguiled 

To death on life's dark river. 



The stream we gazed on then, rolled by ; 
Its waves are unreturning ; 

But we yet stand 

In a lone land. 
Like tombs to mark the memory 
Of hopes and fears, which fade and flee 

In the light of life's dim morning. 

November 5, 1817. 



SONNET. 

OZYMANDIAS. 

I MET a traveller from an antique land 
Who said : Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand. 
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, 
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, 
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read 
Which yet survive, (stamped on these lifeless things,) 
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed : 



32 SELECTED POEMS. 

And on the pedestal these words appear : 
" My name is Ozymandias, king of kings : 
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair ! 
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay 
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare 
The lone and level sands stretch far away. 



1817. 



PASSAGE OF THE APENNINES. 

Listen, listen, Mary mine. 

To the whisper of the Apennine ; 

It bursts on the roof like the thunder's roar, 

Or like the sea on a northern shore. 

Heard in its raging ebb and flow 

By the captives pent in the cave below. 

The Apennine in the light of day 

Is a mighty mountain dim and gray, 

Which between the earth and sky doth lay ; 

But when night comes, a chaos dread 

On the dim starlight then is spread, 

And the Apennine walks abroad with the storm. 

May 4, 18 18. 



THE PAST. 



Wilt thou forget the happy hours 
Which we buried in Love's sweet bowers, 
Heaping over their corpses cold 
Blossoms and leaves instead of mould ? 



AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS. Z2> 

Blossoms which were the joys that fell, s 

And leaves, the hopes that yet remain. 



Forget the dead, the past ? O yet 
There are ghosts that may take revenge for it, 
Memories that make the heart a tomb, 
Regrets which glide through the spirit's gloom. 
And with ghastly whispers tell 
That joy, once lost, is pain. 

1818. 



LINES WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS. 

October, 1818. 

Many a green isle needs must be 
In the deep wide sea of misery, 
Or the mariner, worn and wan, 
Never thus could voyage on 
Day and night, and night and day, 
Drifting on his dreary way. 
With the solid darkness black 
Closing round his vessel's track ; 
Whilst above the sunless sky. 
Big with clouds, hangs heavily, 
And behind the tempest fleet 
Hurries on with lightning feet. 
Riving sail, and cord, and plank. 
Till the ship has almost drank 
Death from the o'er-brimming deep ; 
And sinks down, down, like that sleep 
When the dreamer seems to be 
Weltering through eternity ; 



34 SELECTED POEMS. 

And the dim low line before 

Of a dark and distant shore 20 

Still recedes, as ever still 

Longing with divided will, 

But no power to seek or shun, 

He is ever drifted on 

O'er the unreposing wa\'e . 25 

To the haven of the grave. 

What if there no friends will greet ; 

What if there no heart will meet 

His with love's impatient beat ; 

Wander wheresoe'er he may, 3° 

Can he dream before that day 

To find refuge from distress 

In friendship's smile, in love's caress ? 

Then 't will wreak him little woe 

Whether such there be or no : 35 

Senseless is the breast, and cold, 

Which relenting love would fold ; 

Bloodless are the veins and chill 

Which the pulse of pain did fill ; 

Every little living nerve - 4° 

That from bitter words did swerve 

Round the tortured lips and brow, 

Are like sapless leaflets now 

Frozen upon December's bough. 

On the beach of a northern sea 45 

Which tempests shake eternally, 

As once the wretch there lay to sleep, 

Lies a solitary heap. 

One white skull and seven dry bones, 

On the margin of the stones, 5° 

Where a few gray rushes stand, 

Boundaries of the sea and land : 



AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS. 35 

Nor is heard one voice of wail 

But the sea-mews', as they sail 

O'er the billows of the gale ; 55 

Or the whirlwind up and down 

Howling, like a slaughtered town, 

When a king in glory rides 

Through the pomp of fratricides : 

Those unburied bones around 60 

There is many a mournful sound ; 

There is no lament for him, 

Like a sunless vapour, dim. 

Who once clothed with life and thought 

What now moves nor murmurs not. 65 

Aye, many flowering islands lie 

In the waters of wide Agony : 

To such a one this morn was led. 

My bark by soft winds piloted : 

'Mid the mountains Euganean 7° 

I stood listening to the paean. 

With which the legioned rooks did hail 

The sun's uprise majestical ; 

Gathering round with wings all hoar, 

Through the dewy mist they soar 75 

Like gray shades, till the eastern heaven 

Bursts, and then, as clouds of even, 

Flecked with fire and azure, lie 

In the unfathomable sky, 

So their plumes of purple grain, 80 

Starred with drops of golden rain, 

Gleam above the sunlight woods. 

As in silent multitudes 

On the morning's fitful gale 

Through the broken mist they sail, ^S 



36 SELECTED POEMS. 

And the vapours cloven and gleaming 
Follow down the dark steep streaming, 
Till all is bright, and clear, and still, 
Round the solitary hill. 

Beneath is spread like a green sea 9° 

The waveless plain of Lombardy, 

Bounded by the vaporous air. 

Islanded by cities fair ; 

Underneath day's azure eyes, 

Ocean's nursling, Venice lies, 95 

A peopled labyrinth of walls, 

Amphitrite's destined halls. 

Which her hoary sire now paves 

With his blue and beaming waves. 

Lo ! the sun upsprings behind, loo 

Broad, red, radiant, half reclined 

On the level quivering line 

Of the waters crystalline ; 

And before that chasm of light, 

As within a furnace bright, loS 

Column, tower, and dome, and spire, 

Shine like obelisks of fire, 

Pointing with inconstant motion 

From the altar of dark ocean 

To the sapphire-tinted skies ; no 

As the flames of sacrifice 

From the marble shrines did rise, 

As to pierce the dome of gold 

Where Apollo spoke of old. 

Sun-girt City, thou hast been "5 

Ocean's child, and then his queen ; 
Now is come a darker day, 



AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS. 37 

And thou soon must be his prey, 

If the power that raised thee here 

Hallow so thy watery bier. ^20 

A less drear ruin then than now, 

With thy conquest-branded brow 

Stooping to the slave of slaves 

From thy throne, among the waves 

Wilt thou be, when the sea-mew ^25 

Flies, as once before it flew. 

O'er thine isles depopulate, 

And all is in its ancient state. 

Save where many a palace gate 

With green sea- flowers overgrown 13° 

Like a rock of ocean's own, 

Topples o'er the abandoned sea 

As the tides change suUenly. 

The fisher on his watery way, 

Wandering at the close of day, '35 

Will spread his sail and seize his oar 

Till he pass the gloomy shore. 

Lest thy dead should, from their sleep 

Bursting o'er the starlight deep, 

Lead a rapid mask of death '4o 

O'er the waters of his path. 

Those who alone thy towers behold 

Quivering through aerial gold, 

As I now behold them here, 

Would imagine not they were '45 

Sepulchres, where human forms, 

Like pollution-nourished worms 

To the corpse of greatness cling, . 

Murdered, and now mouldering : 

But if Freedom should awake '5° 



38 SELECTED POEMS. 

In her omnipotence, and shake 

From the Celtic Anarch's hold 

All the keys of dungeons cold, 

Where a hundred cities lie 

Chained like thee, ingloriously, ^55 

Thou and all thy sister band 

Might adorn this sunny land, 

Twining memories of old time 

With new virtues more sublime ; 

If not, perish thou and they, 160 

Clouds which stain truth's rising day 

By her sun consumed away. 

Earth can spare ye : while like flowers, 

In the waste of years and hours, 

From your dust new nations spring 165 

With more kindly blossoming. 

Perish — let there only be 

Floating o'er thy hearthless sea 

As the garment of thy sky 

Clothes the world immortally, 170 

One remembrance, more sublime 

Than the tattered pall of time, 

Which scarce hides thy visage wan ; — 

That a tempest-cleaving Swan 

Of the songs of Albion, ^75 

Driven from his ancestral streams 

By the might of evil dreams, 

Found a nest in thee ; and Ocean 

Welcomed him with such emotion 

That its joy grew his, and sprung 180 

From his lips like music flung 

O'er a mighty thunder-fit 

Chastening terror : — what though yet 

Poesy's unfailing River, 



AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS. 39 

Which through Albion winds for ever 185 

Lashing with melodious wave 

Many a sacred Poet's grave, 

Mourn its latest nursling fled ? 

What though thou with all thy dead 

Scarce can for this fame repay 190 

Aught thine own ? oh, rather say 

Though thy sins and slaveries foul 

Overcloud a sunlike soul ? 

As the ghost of Homer clings 

Round Scamander's wasting springs ; 195 

As divinest Shakespeare's might 

Fills Avon and the world with light 

Like omniscient power which he , 

Imaged 'mid mortality ; 

As the love from Petrarch's urn, 200 

Yet amid yon hills doth burn, 

A quenchless lamp by which the heart 

Sees things unearthly ; — so thou art, 

Mighty spirit — so shall be 

The City that did refuge thee. 205 

Lo, the sun floats up the sky 

Like thought-winged Liberty, 

Till the universal "light 

Seems to level plain and height ; 

From the sea a mist has spread, 210 

And the beams of morn lie dead 

On the towers of Venice now, 

Like its glory long ago. 

By the skirts of that gray cloud 

Many-domed Padua proud 215 

Stands, a peopled solitude, 

'Mid the harvest-shining plain, 



40 SELECTED POEMS. 

Where the peasant heaps his grain 

In the garner of his foe, 

And the milk-white oxen slow 220 

With the purple vintage strain, 

Heaped upon the creaking wain, 

That the brutal Celt may swill 

Drunken sleep with savage will ; 

And the sickle to the sword 225 

Lies unchanged, though many a lord, 

Like a weed whose shade is poison, 

Overgrows this region's foison. 

Sheaves of whom are ripe to come 

To destruction's harvest home : 230 

Men must reap the things they sow, 

Force from force must ever flow, 

Or worse ; but 't is a bitter woe ~ 

That love or reason cannot change 

The despot's rage, the slave's revenge. 235 

Padua, thou within whose walls 

Those mute guests at festivals. 

Son and Mother, Death and Sin, 

Played at dice for Ezzelin, 

Till Death cried, " I win, I win ! " 240 

And Sin cursed to lose the wager, 

But Death promised, to assuage her. 

That he would petition for 

Her to be made Vice-Emperor, 

When the destined years were o'er 245 

Over all between the Po 

And the eastern Alpine snow, 

Under the mighty Austrian. 

Sin smiled so as Sin only can, 

And since that time, aye, long before, 250 



AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS. 4^ 

Both have ruled from shore to shore, 

That incestuous pair, who follow 

Tyrants as the sun the swallow, 

As Repentance follows Crime, 

And as changes follow Time. 255 

In thine halls the lamp of learning, 

Padua, now no more is burning ; 

Like a meteor, whose wild way 

Is lost over the grave of day. 

It gleams betrayed and to betray: 260 

Once remotest nations came 

To adore that sacred flame, 

When it lit not many a hearth 

On this cold and gloomy earth : 

Now new fires from antique light 265 

Spring beneath the wide world's might; 

But their spark lies dead in thee, 

Trampled out by tyranny. 

As the Norway woodman quells, 

In the depth of piny dells, 270 

One light flame among the brakes. 

While the boundless forest shakes. 

And its mighty trunks are torn 

By the fire thus lowly born : 

The spark beneath his feet is dead, 275 

He starts to see the flames it fed 

Howling through the darkened sky 

With a myriad tongues victoriously. 

And sinks down in fear : so thou, 

O Tyranny, beholdest now 

Light around thee, and thou hearest 

The loud flames ascend, and fearest : 

Grovel on the earth : aye, hide 

In the dust thy purple pride ! 



280 



42 SELECTED POEMS. 

Noon descends around me now : 285 

'T is the noon of autumn's glow, 

When a soft and purple mist 

Like a vaporous amethyst, 

Or an air-dissolved star 

Mingling light and fragrance, far 29° 

From the curved horizon's bound 

To the point of heaven's profound. 

Fills the overflowing sky ; 

And the plains that silent lie 

Underneath, the leaves unsodden 295 

Where the infant frost has trodden 

W^ith his morning-winged feet. 

Whose bright print is gleaming yet ; 

And the red and golden vines. 

Piercing with their trellised lines 300 

The rough, dark-skirted wilderness; 

The dun and bladed grass no less, 

Pointing from this hoary tower 

In the windless air ; the flower 

Glimmering at my feet ; the line 305 

Of the olive-sandalled Apennine 

In the south dimly islanded ; 

And the Alps, whose snows are spread 

High between the clouds and sun ; 

And of living things each one ; V-^ 

And my spirit which so long 

Darkened this swift stream of song. 

Interpenetrated lie 

By the glory of the sky : 

Be it love, light, harmony, 3*5 

Odour, or the soul of all 

Which from heaven like dew doth fall. 

Or the mind which feeds this verse 

Peopling the lone universe. 



AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS. 43 

Noon descends, and after noon 320 

Autumn's evening meets me soon, 

Leading the infantine moon, 

And that one star, which to her 

Almost seems to minister 

Half the crimson light she brings 325 

From the sunset's radiant springs : 

And the soft dreams of the morn, 

(Which like winged winds had borne 

To that silent isle, which lies 

'Mid remembered agonies, 33° 

The frail bark of this lone being,) 

Pass, to other sufferers fleeing, 

And its ancient pilot. Pain, 

Sits beside the helm again. 

Other flowering isles must be 335 

In the sea of life and agony : 

Other spirits float and flee 

O'er that gulph : even now, perhaps. 

On some rock the wild wave wraps. 

With folded wings they waiting sit 34° 

For my bark, to pilot it 

To some calm and blooming cove. 

Where for me, and those I love, 

May a windless bower be built. 

Far from passion, pain, and guilt, 345 

In a dell 'mid lawny hills. 

Which the wild sea-murmur fills, 

And soft sunshine, and the sound 

Of old forests echoing round. 

And the light and smell divine 35° 

Of all flowers that breathe and shine : 

We may live so happy there, 



44 SELECTED POEMS. 

That the spirits of the air, 

Envying us, may even entice 

To our heaUng paradise 355 

The polluting multitude ; 

But their rage would be subdued 

By that clime divine and calm, 

And the winds whose wings rain balm 

On the uplifted soul, and leaves 360 

Under which the bright sea heaves ; 

While each breathless interval 

In their whisperings musical 

The inspired soul supplies 

With its own deep melodies, 365 

And the love which heals all strife 

Circling, like the breath of life, 

All things in that sweet abode 

With its own mild brotherhood : 

They, not it, would change ; and soon yi^ 

Every sprite beneath the moon 

Would repent its envy vain, 

And the earth grow young again. 



SONNET. 



Lift not the painted veil which those who live 

Call Life : though unreal shapes be pictured there, 

And it but mimic all we would believe 

With colours idly spread, — behind, lurk Fear 

And Hope, twin destinies ; who ever weave 

Their shadows, o'er the chasm, sightless and drear. 

I knew one who had lifted it — he sought, 

For his lost heart was tender, things to love, 



SONG, ON A FADED VIOLET. 45 

But found them not, alas ! nor was there aught 

The world contains, the which he could approve. 10 

Through the unheeding many he did move, 

A splendour among shadows, a bright blot 

Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove 

For truth, and like the Preacher found it not. 

1818. 



SONG, ON A FADED VIOLET. 



The odour from the flower is gone 

Which like thy kisses breathed on me ; 

The colour from the flower is flown 
Which glowed of thee and only thee ! 



A shrivelled, lifeless, vacant form, 
It lies on my abandoned breast, 

And mocks the heart which yet is warm, 
With cold and silent rest. 



III. 

I weep, — my tears revive it not ! 

I sigh, — it breathes no more on me 
Its mute and uncomplaining lot 

Is such as mine should be. 



[818. 



4^ SELECTED POEMS. 

STANZAS, 

WRITTEN IN DEJECTION NEAR NAPLES. 
I. 

The sun is warm, the sky is clear, 

The waves are dancing fast and bright. 

Blue isles and snowy mountains wear 
The purple noon's transparent might, 
The breath of the moist earth is light, 

Around its unexpanded buds ; 

Like many a voice of one delight. 

The winds, the birds, the ocean floods. 
The City's voice itself is soft like Solitude's. 



I see the Deep's untrampled floor 

With green and purple seaweeds strown ; 
I see the waves upon the shore. 

Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown : 

I sit upon the sands alone, 
The lightning of the noon-tide ocean 

Is flashing round me, and a tone 
Arises from its measured motion. 
How sweet ! did any heart now share in my emotion. 

III. 

Alas ! I have nor hope nor health. 

Nor peace within nor calm around. 
Nor that content surpassing wealth 

The sage in meditation found, 

And walked with inward glory crowned — 
Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure. 

Others I see whom these surround — 



STANZAS WRITTEN IN DEJECTION. 47 

Smiling they live, and call life pleasure ; — 
To me that cup has been dealt in another measure. 



Yet now despair itself is mild, 

Even as the winds and waters are ; 
I could lie down like a tired child, 30 

And weep away the life of care 

Which I have borne and yet must bear, 
Till death like sleep might steal on me, 

And I might feel in the warm air 
My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea 35 

Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony. 



Some might lament that I were cold, 

As I, when this sweet day is gone, 
Which my lost heart, too soon grown old, 

Insults with this untimely moan ; 40 

They might lament — for I am one 
Whom men love not, — and yet regret, 

Unlike this day, which, when the sun 
Shall on its stainless glory set. 
Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet. 45 

December, 18 18. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND: 

A LYRICAL DRAMA IN FOUR ACTS. 



PREFACE. 

The Greek tragic writers, in selecting as their subject any 
portion of their national history or mythology, employed in 
their treatment of it a certain arbitrary discretion. They by 
no means conceived themselves bound to adhere to the com- 
mon interpretation or to imitate in story as in title their rivals 5 
and predecessors. Such a system would have amounted to a 
resignation of those claims to preference over their competitors 
which incited the composition. The Agamemnonian story was 
exhibited on the Athenian theatre with as many variations as 
dramas. 10 

I have presumed to employ a similar licence. The Prome- 
theus U7ibound of ^schylus supposed the reconciliation of 
Jupiter with his victim as the price of the disclosure of the 
danger threatened to his empire by the consummation of his 
marriage with Thetis. Thetis, according to this view of the 15 
subject, wa« given in marriage to Peleus, and Prometheus, by 
the permission of Jupiter, delivered from his captivity by Her- 
cules. Had I framed my story on this model, I should have 
done no more than have attempted to restore the lost drama of 
y^schylus ; an ambition which, if my preference to this mode 20 
of treating the subject had incited me to cherish, the recollec- 
tion of the high comparison such an attempt would challenge 
might well abate. But, in truth, I was averse from a catas- 
trophe so feeble as that of reconcihng the Champion with the 
Oppressor of mankind. The moral interest of the fable, which 25 
is so powerfully sustained by the sufferings and endurance of 



so 



SELECTED POEMS. 



Prometheus, would be annihilated if we could conceive of him 
as unsaying his high language and quailing before his success- 
ful and perfidious adversary. The only imaginary being resem- 
bling in any degree Prometheus, is Satan ; and Prometheus is, 
5 in my judgment, a more poetical character than Satan, because, 
in addition to courage, and majesty, and firm and patient oppo- 
sition to omnipotent force, he is susceptible of being described 
as exempt from the taints of ambition, envy, revenge, and a 
desire for personal aggrandizement, which, in the Hero of 

ID Paradise Lost, interfere with the interest. The character of 
Satan engenders in the mind a pernicious casuistry which 
leads us to weigh his faults with his wrongs, and to excuse 
the former because the latter exceed all measure. In the 
minds of those who consider that magnificent fiction with a 

15 religious feeling it engenders something worse. But Prome- 
theus is, as it were, the type of the highest perfection of moral 
and intellectual nature, impelled by the purest and the truest 
motives to the best and noblest ends. 

This Poem was chiefly written upon the mountainous ruins 

20 of the Baths of Caracalla, among the flowery glades, and 
thickets of odoriferous blossoming trees, which are extended in 
ever winding labyrinths upon its irnmense platforms and dizzy 
arches suspended in the air. The bright blue sky of Rome, 
and the effect of the vigorous awakening spring in that divin- 

25 est climate, and the new life with which it drenches the spirits 
even to intoxication, were the inspiration of this drama. 

The imagery which I have employed will be found, in many 
instances, to have been drawn from the operations of the 
human mind, or from those external actions by which they are 

30 expressed. This is unusual in modern poetry, although Dante 
and Shakespeare are full of instances of the same kind : Dante 
indeed more than any other poet, and with greater success. But 
the Greek poets, as writers to whom no resource of awakening 
the sympathy of their contemporaries was unknown, were in the 

35 habitual use of this power; and it is the study of their works, 
(since a higher merit would probably be denied me,) to which 
I am willing that my readers should impute this singularity. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 5 1 

One word is due in candour to the degree in which the study 
of contemporary writings may have tinged my composition, for 
such has been a topic of censure with regard to poems far 
more popular, and indeed more deservedly popular, than mine. 
It is impossible that any one who inhabits the same age with 5 
such writers as those who stand in the foremost ranks of our 
own, can conscientiously assure himself that his language and 
tone of thought may not have been modified by the study of 
the productions of those extraordinary intellects. It is true 
that, not the spirit of their genius, but the forms in which it 10 
has manifested itself, are due less to the peculiarities of their 
own minds than to the peculiarity of the moral and intellectual 
condition of the minds among which they have been produced. 
Thus a number of writers possess the form, whilst they want 
the spirit of those whom, it is alleged, they imitate ; because the 15 
former is the endowment of the age in which they live, and 
the latter must be the uncommunicated lightning of their own 
mind. 

The peculiar style of intense and comprehensive imagery 
which distinguishes the modern literature of England, has not 20 
been, as a general power, the product of the imitation of any 
particular writer. The mass of capabilities remains at every 
period materially the same ; the circumstances which awaken 
it to action perpetually change. If England were divided into 
forty republics, each equal in population and extent to Athens, 25 
there is no reason to suppose but that, under institutions not 
more perfect than those of Athens, each would produce phi- 
losophers and poets equal to those who (if we except Shake- 
speare) have never been surpassed. We owe the great writers 
of the golden age of our literature to that fervid awakening 30 
of the public mind which shook to dust the oldest and most 
oppressive form of the Christian religion. We owe Milton to 
the progress and development of the same spirit : the sacred 
Milton was, let it ever be remembered, a republican, and a 
bold enquirer into morals and religion. The great writers of 35 
our own age are, we have reason to suppose, the companions 
and forerunners of some unimagined change in our social con- 



5 2 SELECTED POEMS. 

dition or the opinions which cement it. The cloud of mind is 
discharging its collected lightning, and the equilibrium between 
institutions and opinions is now restoring, or is about to be 
restored. 
5 As to imitation, poetry is a mimetic art. It creates, but it 
creates by combination and representation. Poetical abstrac- 
tions are beautiful and new, not because the portions of which 
they are composed had no previous existence in the mind of 
man or in nature, but because the whole produced by their 

ID combination has some intelligible and beautiful analogy with 
those sources of emotion and thought, and with the contempo- 
rary condition of them : one great poet is a masterpiece of 
nature which another not only ought to study but must study. 
He might as wisely and as easily determine that his mind 

15 should no longer be the mirror of all that is lovely in the 
visible universe, as exclude from his contemplation the beauti- 
ful which exists in the writings of a great contemporary. The 
pretence of doing it would be a presumption in any but the 
greatest ; the effect, even in him, would be strained, unnatural, 

20 and ineffectual. A poet is the combined product of such 
internal powers as modify the nature of others, and of such 
external influences as excite and sustain these powers; he is 
not one, but both. Every man's mind is, in this respect, modi- 
fied by all the objects of nature and art ; by every word and 

25 every suggestion which he ever admitted to act upon his con- 
sciousness ; it is the mirror upon which all forms are reflected, 
and in which they compose one form. Poets, not otherwise 
than philosophers, painters, sculptors, and musicians, are, in 
one sense, the creators, and, in another, the creations, of their 

30 age. From this subjection the loftiest do not escape. There 
is a similarity between Homer and Hesiod, between ^schylus 
and Euripides, between Virgil and Horace, between Dante 
and Petrarch, between Shakespeare and Fletcher, between 
Dryden and Pope ; each has a generic resemblance under 

35 which their specific distinctions are arranged. If this simi- 
larity be the result of imitation, I am willing to confess that I 
have imitated. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 53 

Let this opportunity be conceded to me of acknowledging 
that I have, what a Scotch philosopher characteristically terms, 
" a passion for reforming the world " : what passion incited 
him to write and publish his book, he omits to explain. For 
my part I had rather be damned with Plato and Lord Bacon, 5 
than go to Heaven with Paley and Mai thus. But it is a mis- 
take to suppose that I dedicate my poetical compositions 
solely to the direct enforcement of reform, or that I consider 
them in any degree as containing a reasoned system on the 
theory of human life. Didactic poetry is my abhorrence; 10 
nothing can be equally well expressed in prose that is not 
tedious and supererogatory in verse. My purpose has hitherto 
been simply to familiarize the highly refined imagination of the 
more^select classes of poetical readers wltli.beatitiful idealisms 
of moraj .excellence ; aware that until the mind can love, and 15 
admire, and trust, and hope, and endure, reasoned principles of 
moral conduct are seeds cast upon the highway of life which 
the unconscious passenger tramples into dust, although they 
would bear the harvest of his happiness. Should I live to 
accomplish what I purpose, that is, produce a systematical 20 
history of what appear to me to be the genuine elements of 
human society, let not the advocates of injustice and supersti- 
tion flatter themselves that I should take yEschylus rather than 
Plato as my model. 

The having spoken of myself with unaffected freedom will 25 
need little apology with the candid ; and let the uncandid con- 
sider that they injure me less than their own hearts and minds 
by misrepresentation. Whatever talents a person may possess 
to amuse and instruct others, be they ever so inconsiderable, 
he is yet bound to exert them : if his attempt be ineffectual, let 30 
the punishment of an unaccomplished purpose have been suffi- 
cient ; let none trouble themselves to heap the dust of oblivion 
upon his efforts ; the pile they raise will betray his grave which 
might otherwise have been unknown. 



54 



SELECTED POEMS. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 



ACT I. 



Scene, A Ravine of Icy Rocks in the Indian Caucasus. Prome- 
theus is discovered bound to the Precipice. Panthea and Ione 
are seated at his feet. Time, Night. During the Scene, Morn- 
ing slowly breaks. 

Prometheus. 

Monarch of Gods and Daemons, and all Spirits 

But One, who throng those bright and rolling worlds 

Which Thou and I alone of living things 

Behold with sleepless eyes ! regard this Earth 

Made multitudinous with thy slaves, whom thou 5 

Requitest for knee-worship, prayer, and praise, 

And toil, and hecatombs of broken hearts. 

With fear and self-contempt and barren hope. 

Whilst me, who am thy foe, eyeless in hate, 

Hast thou made reign and triumph, to thy scorn, 10 

O'er mine own misery and thy vain revenge. 

Three thousand years of sleep-unsheltered hours, 

And moments aye divided by keen pangs 

Till they seemed years, torture and solitude. 

Scorn and despair, — these are mine empire. 15 

More glorious far than that which thou surveyest 

From thine unenvied throne, O, Mighty God ! 

Almighty, had I deigned to share the shame 

Of thine ill tyranny, and hung not here 

Nailed to this wall of eagle-bafifling mountain, 20 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 55 

Black, wintry, dead, unmeasured ; without herb, 
Insect, or beast, or shape or sound of life. 
Ah me ! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever ! 

No change, no pause, no hope ! Yet I endure. 

I ask the Earth, have not the mountains felt? 25 

I ask yon Heaven, the all-beholding Sun, 

Has it not seen ? The Sea, in storm or calm, 

Heaven's ever-changing Shadow, spread below, 

Have its deaf waves not heard my agony ? 

Ah me ! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever ! 30 

The crawling glaciers pierce me with the spears 

Of their moon-freezing crystals, the bright chains 

Eat with their burning cold into my bones. 

Heaven's winged hound, polluting from thy lips 

His beak in poison not his own, tears up 35 

My heart ; and shapeless sights come wandering by, 

The ghastly people of the realm of dream, 

Mocking me : and the Earthquake-fiends are charged 

To wrench the rivets from my quivering wounds 

When the rocks split and close again behind : 40 

While from their loud abysses howling throng 

The genii of the storm, urging the rage 

Of whirlwind, and afflict me with keen hail. 

And yet to me welcome is day and night. 

Whether one breaks the hoar-frost of the morn, 45 

Or starry, dim, and slow, the other climbs 

The leaden-coloured east ; for then they lead 

The wingless, crawling hours, one among whom 

— As some dark Priest hales the reluctant victim — 

Shall drag thee, cruel King, to kiss the blood 50 

From these pale feet, which then might trample thee 

If they disdained not such a prostrate slave. 



S6 



SELECTED POEMS. 



Disdain ! Ah no ! I pity thee. What ruin 

Will hunt thee undefended through the wide Heaven ! 

How will thy soul, cloven to its depth with terror, 55 

Gape like a hell within ! I speak in grief, 

Not exultation, for I hate no more, 

As then ere misery made me wise. The curse 

Once breathed on thee I would recall. Ye Mountains, 

Whose many-voiced Echoes, through the mist 60 

Of cataracts, flung the thunder of that spell ! 

Ye icy Springs, stagnant with wrinkling frost. 

Which vibrated to hear me, and then crept 

Shuddering through India ! Thou serenest Air, 

Through which the Sun walks burning without beams ! 65 

And ye swift Whirlwinds, who on poised wings 

Hung mute and moveless o'er yon hushed abyss. 

As thunder, louder than your own, made rock 

The orbed world ! If then my words had power, 

Though I am changed so that aught evil wish 70 

Is dead within ; although no memory be 

Of what is hate, let them not lose it now ! 

What was that curse ? for ye all heard me speak. 

First Voice : from the Mountains. 

Thrice three hundred thousand years 

O'er the Earthquake's couch we stood : 75 

Oft, as men convulsed with fears, 

We trembled in our multitude. 

Second Voice : from the sprhigs. 

Thunder-bolts had parched our water, 

We had been stained with bitter blood, 
And had run mute, 'mid shrieks of slaughter, 80 

Through a city and a solitude. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 57 



Third Voice : froi7i the Air. 

I had clothed, since Earth uprose, 

Its wastes in colours not their own, 
And oft had my serene repose 

Been cloven by many a rending groan. 85 

Fourth Voice : from the Whirhvmds. 

We had soared beneath these mountains 

Unresting ages ; nor had thunder, 
Nor yon volcano's flaming fountains, 

Nor any power above or under 

Ever made us mute with wonder. 90 

First Voice. 

But never bowed our snowy crest 
As at the voice of thine unrest. 

Second Voice. 

Never such a sound before 

To the Indian waves we bore. 

A pilot asleep on the howling sea 95 

Leaped up from the deck in agony. 

And heard, and cried, "Ah, woe is me ! " 

And died as mad as the wild waves be. 

Third Voice. 

By such dread words from Earth to Heaven 

My still realm was never riven : 100 

When its wound was closed, there stood 

Darkness o'er the day like blood. 



ss 



SELECTED POEMS. 

Fourth Voice. 

And we shrank back : for dreams of ruin 

To frozen caves our flight pursuing 

Made us keep silence — thus — and thus — 105 

Though silence is a hell to us. 

The Earth. 

The tongueless Caverns of the craggy hills 

Cried, " Misery ! " then ; the hollow Heaven replied, 

" Misery ! " And the Ocean's purple waves, 

Climbing the land, howled to the lashing winds, no 

And the pale nations heard it, " Misery 1 " 

Prometheus. 

I hear a sound of voices : not the voice 

Which I gave forth. Mother, thy sons and thou 

Scorn him, without whose all-enduring will 

Beneath the fierce omnipotence of Jove, 115 

Both they and thou had vanished, like thin mist 

Unrolled on the morning wind. Know ye not me. 

The Titan ? He who made his agony 

The barrier to your else all-conquering foe ? 

Oh, rock-embosomed lawns, and snow-fed streams, 120 

Now seen athwart frore vapours, deep below. 

Through whose o'ershadowing woods I wandered once 

With Asia, drinking life from her loved eyes ; 

Why scorns the spirit which informs ye, now 

To commune with me ? me alone, who checked, 125 

As one who checks a fiend-drawn charioteer, 

The falsehood and the force of him who reigns 

Supreme, and with the groans of pining slaves 

Fills your dim glens and liquid wildernesses : 

Why answer ye not, still ? Brethren ! 



PRO ME THE us UNBOUND. 59 

The Earth. 

They dare not! 130 

Prometheus. 

Who dares.? for I would hear that curse again. 

Ha, what an awful whisper rises up ! 

'T is scarce like sound : it tingles through the frame 

As lightning tingles, hovering ere it strike. 

Speak, Spirit ! from thine inorganic voice 135 

I only know that thou art moving near 

And love. How cursed I him ? 

The Earth. 

How canst thou hear 
Who knowest not the language of the dead ? 

Prometheus. 
Thou art a living spirit : speak as they. 

The Earth. 

I dare not speak like life, lest Heaven's fell King 140 

Should hear, and link me to some wheel of pain 

More torturing than the one whereon I roll. 

Subtle thou art and good, and though the Gods 

Hear not this voice, yet thou art more than God 

Being wise and kind : earnestly hearken now. 145 

Prometheus. 

Obscurely through my brain, like shadows dim, 
Sweep awful thoughts, rapid and thick. I feel 
Faint, like one mingled in entwining love ; 
Yet 't is not pleasure. 



6o SELECTED POEMS. 

The Earth. 

No, thou canst not hear : 
Thou art immortal, and this tongue is known 150 

Only to those who die. 

Prometheus. 

And what art thou, 
O, melancholy Voice ? 

The Earth. 

1 am the Earth, 
Thy mother ; she within whose stony veins. 
To the last fibre of the loftiest tree 

Whose thin leaves trembled in the frozen air, 155 

Joy ran, as blood within a living frame, 
When thou didst from her bosom, like a cloud 
Of glory, arise, a spirit of keen joy ! 
And at thy voice her pining sons uplifted 
Their prostrate brows from the polluting dust, 160 

And our almighty Tyrant with fierce dread 
Grew pale, until his thunder chained thee here. 
Then, see those million worlds which burn and roll 
Around us : their inhabitants beheld 

My sphered light wane in wide Heaven ; the sea 165 

Was lifted by strange tempest, and new fire 
From earthquake-rifted mountains of bright snow 
Shook its portentous hair beneath Heaven's frown ; 
Lightning and Inundation vexed the plains ; 
Blue thistles bloomed in cities ; foodless toads 170 

Within voluptuous chambers panting crawled : 
When Plague had fallen on man, and beast, and worm, 
And Famine ; and black blight on herb and tree ; 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 6i 

And in the corn, and vines, and meadow-grass, 

Teemed ineradicable poisonous weeds 175 

Draining their growth, for my wan breast was dry 

With grief ; and the thin air, my breath, was stained 

With the contagion of a mother's hate 

Breathed on her child's destroyer ; aye, I heard 

Thy curse, the which, if thou rememberest not, 180 

Yet my innumerable seas and streams. 

Mountains, and caves, and winds, and yon wide air, 

And the inarticulate people of the dead, 

Preserve, a treasured spell. We meditate 

In secret joy and hope those dreadful words 185 

But dare not speak them. 

Prometheus. 

Venerable mother ! 
All else who live and suffer take from thee 
Some comfort ; flowers, and fruits, and happy sounds. 
And love, though fleeting ; these may not be mine. 
But mine own words, I pray, deny me not. 190 

The Earth. 

They shall be told. Ere Babylon was dust, 

The Magus Zoroaster, my dead child, 

Met his own image walking in the garden. 

That apparition, sole of men, he saw. 

For know there are two worlds of life and death : 195 

One that which thou beholdest ; but the other 

Is underneath the grave, where do inhabit 

The shadows of all forms that think and live 

Till death unite them and they part no more ; 

Dreams and the light imaginings of men, 200 



52 SELECTED POEMS. 

And all that faith creates or love desires, 

Terrible, strange, sublime and beauteous shapes. 

There thou art, and dost hang, a writhing shade, 

'Mid whirlwind-peopled mountains ; all the gods 

Are there, and all the powers of nameless worlds, 205 

Vast, sceptred phantoms ; heroes, men, and beasts ; 

And Demogorgon, a tremendous gloom ; 

And he, the supreme Tyrant, on his throne 

Of burning gold. Son, one of these shall utter 

The curse which all remember. Call at will 210 

Thine own ghost, or the ghost of Jupiter, 

Hades or Typhon, or what mightier Gods 

From all-prolific Evil, since thy ruin, 

Have sprung, and trampled on my prostrate sons. 

Ask, and they must reply : so the revenge 215 

Of the Supreme may sweep through vacant shades, 

As rainy wind through the abandoned gate 

Of a fallen palace. 

Prometheus. 

Mother, let not aught 
Of that which may be evil, pass again 

My lips, or those of aught resembling me. 220 

Phantasm of Jupiter, arise, appear ! 

lONE. 

My wings are folded o'er mine ears : 

My wings are crossed o'er mine eyes : 
Yet through their silver shade appears, 

And through their lulling plumes arise, 225 

A Shape, a throng of sounds ; 

May it be no ill to thee 
O thoa of many wounds ! 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 63 

Near whom, for our sweet sister's sake, 

Ever thus we watch and wake. . 230 

Panthea. 

The sound is of whirlwind underground, 

Earthquake, and fire, and mountains cloven ; 
The shape is awful like the sound. 

Clothed in dark purple, star-inwoven. 
A sceptre of pale gold 235 

To stay steps proud, o'er the slow cloud 
His veined hand doth hold. 
Cruel he looks, but calm and strong, 
Like one who does, not suffers wrong. 

Phantasm of Jupiter. 

Why have the secret powers of this strange world 240 

Driven me, a frail and empty phantom, hither 

On direst storms ? What unaccustomed sounds 

Are hovering on my lips, unlike the voice 

With which our pallid race hold ghastly talk 

In darkness ? And, proud sufferer, who art thou ? 245 

Prometheus. 

Tremendous Image, as thou art must be 
He whom thou shadowest forth. I am his foe. 
The Titan. Speak the words which I would hear, 
Although no thought inform thine empty voice. 

The Earth. 

Listen ! And though your echoes must be mute, 250 

Gray mountains, and old woods, and haunted springs. 
Prophetic caves, and isle-surrounding streams. 
Rejoice to hear what yet ye cannot speak. 



64 SELECTED POEMS. 

Phantasm. 

A spirit seizes me and speaks within : 

It tears me as fire tears a tliunder-cloud. 255 

Panthea. 

See, how he Hfts his mighty looks, the Heaven 
Darkens above. 

lONE. 

He speaks ! O shelter me ! 

Prometheus. 

I see the curse on gestures proud and cold, 

And looks of firm defiance, and calm hate, 

And such despair as mocks itself with smiles, 260 

Written as on a scroll : yet speak : Oh, speak ! 

Phantasm. 

Fiend, I defy thee ! with a calm, fixed mind, 

All that thou canst inflict I bid thee do ; 
Foul Tyrant both of Gods and Human-kind, 

One only being shalt thou not subdue. 265 

Rain then thy plagues upon me here, 
Ghastly disease, and frenzying fear ; 

And let alternate frost and fire 

Eat into me, and be thine ire 
Lightning, and cutting hail, and legioned forms 270 

Of furies, driving by upon the wounding storms. 

Aye, do thy worst. Thou art omnipotent. 

O'er all things but thyself I gave thee power, 
And my own will. Be thy swift mischiefs sent 

To blast mankind, from yon aetherial tower. 275 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 65 

Let thy malignant spirit move 

In darkness over those I love : 

On me and mine I imprecate 

The utmost torture of thy hate ; 
And thus devote to sleepless agony, 280 

This undeclining head while thou must reign on high. 

But thou, who art the God and Lord : O, thou, 
Who fillest with thy soul this world of woe, 

To whom all things of Earth and Heaven do bow 
In fear and worship : all-prevailing foe ! 285 

I curse thee ! let a sufferer's curse 

Clasp thee, his torturer, like remorse ; 

Till thine Infinity shall be 

A robe of envenomed agony ; 
And thine Omnipotence a crown of pain, 290 

To cling like burning gold round thy dissolving brain. 

Heap on thy soul, by virtue of this Curse, 

111 deeds, then be thou damned, beholding good ; 
Both infinite as is the universe. 

And thou, and thy self-torturing solitude. 295 

An awful image of calm power 
Though now thou sittest, let the hour 
Come, when thou must appear to be 
That which thou art internally. 
And after many a false and fruitless crime 300 

Scorn track thy lagging fall through boundless space and 
time. 

Prometheus. 
Were these my words, O, Parent ? 

The Earth. 

They were thine. 



66 SELECTED POEMS. 



Prometheus. 



It doth repent me : words are quick and vain ; 

Grief for awhile is blind, and so was mine. 

I wish no living thing to suffer pain. 305 

The Earth. 

Misery, Oh misery to me, 

That Jove at length should vanquish thee. 

Wail, howl aloud, Land and Sea, 

The Earth's rent heart shall answer ye. 
Howl, Spirits of the living and the dead, 310 

Your refuge, your defence lies fallen and vanquished. 

First Echo. 
Lies fallen and vanquished ! 

Second Echo. 
Fallen and vanquished ! 

lONE. 

Fear not : 't is but some passing spasm ; 

The Titan is unvanquished still. 315 

But see, where through the azure chasm 

Of yon forked and snowy hill 
Trampling the slant winds on high 

With golden-sandalled feet, that glow 
Under plumes of purple dye, 320 

Like rose-ensanguined ivory, 

A Shape comes now. 
Stretching on high from his right hand 
A serpent-cinctured wand. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 67 

Panthea. 
'T is Jove's world-wandering herald, Mercury. 325 

lONE. 

And who are those with hydra tresses 

And iron wings that climb the wind, 
Whom the frowning God represses 

Like vapours steaming up behind, 
Clanging loud, an endless crowd — 330 

Panthea. 

These are Jove's tempest-walking hounds, 
Whom he gluts with groans and blood, 
When charioted on sulphurous cloud 

He bursts Heaven's bounds. 

lONE. 

Are they now led, from the thin dead 335 

On new pangs to be fed .? 

Panthea. 
The Titan looks as ever, firm, not proud. 

First Fury. 
Ha ! I scent life ! 

Second Fury. 

Let me but look into his eyes ! 

Third Fury. 

The hope of torturing him smells like a heap 

Of corpses, to a death-bird after battle. 340 



68 SELECTED POEMS. 

First Fury. 

Barest thou delay, O Herald ! take cheer, Hounds 
Of Hell : what if the Son of Maia soon 
Should make us food and sport — who can please long 
The Omnipotent ? 

Mercury. 

Back to your towers of iron, 
And gnash, beside the streams of fire and wail, 345 

Your foodless teeth. Geryon, arise ! and Gorgon, 
Chimaera, and thou Sphinx, subtlest of fiends 
Who ministered to Thebes Heaven's poisoned wine, 
Unnatural love, and more unnatural hate: 
These shall perform your task. 

First Fury. 

Oh, mercy ! mercy ! 350 

We die with our desire : drive us not back ! 

Mercury, 

Crouch then in silence. 

Awful Sufferer 
To thee unwilling, most unwillingly 
I come, by the great Father's will driven down. 
To execute a doom of new revenge. 355 

Alas ! I pity thee, and hate myself 
That I can do no more : aye from thy sight 
Returning, for a season. Heaven seems Hell, 
So thy worn form pursues me night and day. 
Smiling reproach. Wise art thou, firm and good, 360 

But vainly wouldst stand forth alone in strife 
Against the Omnipotent ; as yon clear lamps 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 69 

That measure and divide the weary years 

From which there is no refuge, long have taught 

And long must teach. Even now thy Torturer arms 365 

With the strange might of unimagined pains 

The powers who scheme slow agonies in Hell, 

And my commission is to lead them here, 

Or what more subtle, foul, or savage fiends 

People the abyss, and leave them to their task. 370 

Be it not so ! there is a secret known 

To thee, and to none else of living things, 

Which may transfer the sceptre of wide Heaven, 

The fear of which perplexes the Supreme : 

Clothe it in words, and bid it clasp his throne 375 

In intercession ; bend thy soul in prayer, 

And like a suppliant in some gorgeous fane, 

Let the will kneel within thy haughty heart : 

For benefits and meek submission tame 

The fiercest and the mightiest. 

Prometheus. 

Evil minds 380 

Change good to their own nature. I gave all 
He has ; and in return he chains me here 
Years, ages, night and day : whether the Sun 
Split my parched skin, or in the moony night 
The crystal- winged snow cling round my hair : 385 

Whilst my beloved race is trampled down 
By his thought-executing ministers. 
Such is the tyrant's recompense : 't is just : 
He who is evil can receive no good ; 

And for a world bestowed, or a friend lost, 390 

He can feel hate, fear, shame ; not gratitude : 
He but requites me for his own misdeed. 
Kindness to such is keen reproach, which breaks 



70 



SELECTED POEMS. 



With bitter stings the light sleep of Revenge. 

Submission, thou dost know I cannot try : 395 

For what submission but that fatal word, 

The death-seal of mankind's captivity, 

Like the Sicilian's hair-suspended sword, 

Which trembles o'er his crown, would he accept, 

Or could I yield ? Which yet I will not yield. 400 

Let others flatter Crime, where it sits throned 

In brief Omnipotence : secure are they : 

For Justice, when triumphant, will weep down 

Pity, not punishment, on her own wrongs. 

Too much avenged by those who err. I wait, 405 

Enduring thus, the retributive hour 

Which since we spake is even nearer now. 

But hark, the hell-hounds clamour : fear delay : 

Behold ! Heaven lowers under thy Father's frown. 

Mercury. 

Oh, that we might be spared, — I to inflict 410 

And thou to suffer ! Once more answer me : 
Thou knowest not the period of Jove's power ? 

Prometheus. 
I know but this, that it must come. 

Mercury. 

Alas ! 
Thou canst not count thy years to come of pain t 

Prometheus. 

They last while Jove must reign : nor more, nor less 415 
Do I desire or fear. 



PR OME THE US UNB O UND. 



Mercury. 



71 



Yet pause, and plunge 
Into Eternity, where recorded time. 
Even all that we imagine, age on age. 
Seems but a point, and the reluctant mind 
Flags wearily in its unending flight, 420 

Till it sink, dizzy, blind, lost, shelterless ; ' 

Perchance it has not numbered the slow years 
Which thou must spend in torture, unreprieved ? 

Prometheus. 
Perchance no thought can count them, yet they pass. 

Mercury. 

If thou might'st dwell among the gods the while 425 

Lapped in voluptuous joy ? 

Prometheus. 

I would not quit 
This bleak ravine, these unrepentant pains. 

Mercury. 
Alas ! I wonder at, yet pity thee. 

Prometheus. 

Pity the self-despising slaves of Heaven, 

Not me, within whose mind sits peace serene, 430 

As light in the sun, throned : how vain is talk ! 

Call up the fiends. 



72 SELECTED POEMS. 



lONE. 

O sister, look ! White fire 
Has cloven to the roots yon huge snow-loaded cedar : 
How fearfully God's thunder howls behind ! 

Mercury. 

I must obey his words and thine : alas ! 435 

Most heavily remorse hangs at my heart ! 

Panthea. 

See where the child of Heaven, with winged feet, 
Runs down the slanted sunlight of the dawn. 

lONE. 

Dear sister, close thy plumes over thine eyes 

Lest thou behold and die : they come : they come 440 

Blackening the birth of day with countless wings, 

And hollow underneath, like death. 



First Fury. 



Second Fury. 



Prometheus ! 



Immortal Titan 1 



Third Fury. 
Champion of Heaven's slaves ! 

Prometheus. 

He whom some dreadful voice invokes is here, 
Prometheus, the chained Titan. Horrible forms, 445 

What and who are ye ? Never yet there came 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 



73 



Phantasms so foul through monster-teeming Hell 

From the all-miscreative brain of Jove ; 

Whilst I behold such execrable shapes, 

Methinks I grow like what I contemplate, 450 

And laugh and stare in loathsome sympathy. 

First Fury. 

We are the ministers of pain, and fear. 

And disappointment, and mistrust, and hate. 

And clinging crime ; and as lean dogs pursue 

Through wood and lake some struck and sobbing fawn, 455 

We track all things that weep, and bleed, and live. 

When the great King betrays them to our will. 

Prometheus. 

Oh ! many fearful natures in one name, 

I know ye ; and these lakes and echoes know 

The darkness and the clangour of your wings. 460 

But why more hideous than your loathed selves 

Gather ye up in legions from the deep t 

Second Fury. 
We knew not that : Sisters, rejoice, rejoice ! 

Proimetheus. 
Can aught exult in its deformity ? 

Second Fury. 

The beauty of delight makes lovers glad, 465 

Gazing on one another : so are we. 

As from the rose which the pale priestess kneels 

To gather for her festal crown of flowers 



y^ SELECTED POEMS. 

The aerial crimson falls, flushing her cheek, 

So from our victim's destined agony 470 

The shade which is our form invests us round ; 

Else we are shapeless as our mother Night. 

Prometheus. 

I laugh your power, and his who sent you here, 
To lowest scorn. Pour forth the cup of pain. 

First Fury. 

Thou thinkest we will rend thee bone from bone, 475 

And nerve from nerve, working like fire within ? 

Prometheus. 

Pain is my element, as hate is thine ; 
Ye rend me now : I care not. 

Second Fury. 

Dost imagine 
We will but laugh into thy lidless eyes ? 

Prometheus. 

I weigh not what ye do, but what ye suffer, 480 

Being evil. Cruel was the power which called 
You, or aught else so wretched, into light. 

Third Fury. 

Thou think'st we will live through thee, one by one. 

Like animal life, and though we can obscure not 

The soul which burns within, that we will dwell 485 

Beside it, like a vain loud multitude 

Vexing the self-content of wisest men : 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 75 

That we will be dread thought beneath thy brain, 

And foul desire round thine astonished heart, 

And blood within thy labyrinthine veins 49° 

Crawling like agony. 

Prometheus. 

Why, ye are thus now; 
Yet am I king over myself, and rule 
The torturing and conflicting throngs within. 
As Jove rules you when Hell grows mutinous. 

Chorus of Furies. 

From the ends of the earth, from the ends of the earth, 495 
Where the night has its grave and the morning its birth, 

Come, come, come ! 
Oh, ye who shake hills with the scream of your mirth, 
When cities sink howling in ruin ; and ye 
Who with wingless footsteps trample the sea, 500 

And close upon Shipwreck and Famine's track. 
Sit chattering with joy on the foodless wreck ; 
Come, come, come ! 
Leave the bed, low, cold, and red, 
Strewed beneath a nation dead ; 505 

Leave the hatred, as in ashes 

Fire is left for future burning : 
It will burst in bloodier flashes 

When ye stir it, soon returning : 
Leave the self-contempt implanted 510 

In young spirits, sense-enchanted, 

Misery's yet unkindled fuel : 
Leave Hell's secrets half unchanted 
To the maniac dreamer ; cruel 



76 



SELECTED POEMS. 

More than ye can be with hate 515 

Is he with fear. 

Come, come, come ! 
We are steaming up from Hell's wide gate 
And we burthen the blast of the atmosphere, 
But vainly we toil till ye come here. 520 

lONE. 

Sister, I hear the thunder of new wings. 

Panthea. 

These solid mountains quiver with the sound 
Even as the tremulous air : their shadows make 
The space within my plumes more black than night. 

First Fury. 

Your call was as a winged car 525 

Driven on whirlwinds fast and far ; 
It rapt us from red gulphs of war. 

Second Fury. 
From wide cities, famine- wasted ; 

Third Fury. 
Groans half heard, and blood untasted ; 

Fourth Fury. 

Kingly conclaves stern and cold, 530 

Where blood with gold is bought and sold ; 

Fifth Fury. 

From the furnace, white and hot. 
In which — 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 77 



A Fury. 
Speak not : whisper not : 
I know all that ye would tell, 

But to speak might break the spell 535 

■ Which must bend the Invincible, 
The stern of thought ; 
He yet defies the deepest power of Hell. 

Fury. 
Tear the veil ! 

Another Fury. 

It is torn. 

Chorus. 
The pale stars of the morn 
Shine on a misery, dire to be borne. 54° 

Dost thou faint, mighty Titan? We laugh thee to scorn. 
Dost thou boast the clear knowledge thou wakenedst for 

man? 
Then was kindled within him a thirst which outran 
Those perishing waters ; a thirst of fierce fever, 
Hope, love, doubt, desire, which consume him for ever. 545 
One came forth of gentle worth 
SmiUng on the sanguine earth ; 
His words outlived him, like swift poison 

Withering up truth, peace, and pity. 
Look! where round the wide horizon 55° 

Many a million-peopled city 
Vomits smoke in the bright air. 
Mark that outcry of despair ! 
'T is his mild and gentle ghost 

Wailing for the faith he kindled : 555 

Look again, the flames almost 



78 SELECTED POEMS. 

To a glow-worm's lamp have dwindled : 
The survivors round the embers 
Gather in dread. 

Joy, joy, joy! 560 

Past ages crowd on thee, but each one remembers, 
And the future is dark, and the present is spread 
Like a pillow of thorns for thy slumberless head. 

Semichorus I. 

Drops of bloody agony flow 

From his white and quivering brow. 5^5 

Grant a little respite now: 

See a disenchanted nation 

Springs like day from desolation; 

To Truth its state is dedicate, 

And Freedom leads it forth, her mate ; S7o 

A legioned band of linked brothers 

Whom Love calls children — 

Semichorus II. 

'T is another's : 
See how kindred murder kin : 
'T is the vintage-time for death and sin : 
Blood, like new wine, bubbles within:- 575 

Till Despair smothers 
The struggling world, which slaves and tyrants win, 

\All the Furies va?iis/i, except ojie. 

Zone. 

Hark, sister ! what a low yet dreadful groan 

Quite unsuppressed is tearing up the heart 

Of the good Titan, as storms tear the deep, 5S0 

And beasts hear the sea moan in inland caves. 

Darest thou observe how the fiends torture him .? 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 79 

Panthea. 
Alas ! I looked forth twice, but will no more. 

lONE. 

What didst thou see ? 

Panthea. 

A woful sight : a youth 
With patient looks nailed to a crucifix. 5^5 

lONE. 

What next ? 

Panthea. 

The heaven around, the earth below 
Was peopled with thick shapes of human death, 
All horrible, and wrought by human hands. 
And some appeared the work of human hearts, 
For men were slowly killed by frowns and smiles : 59° 

And other sights too foul to speak and live 
Were wandering by. Let us not tempt worse fear 
By looking forth : those groans are grief enough. 

Fury. 

Behold an emblem : those who do endure 

Deep wrongs for man, and scorn, and chains, but heap 595 

Thousandfold torment on themselves and him. 

Prometheus. 

Remit the anguish of that lighted stare ; 

Close those wan lips ; let that thorn-wounded brow 

Stream not with blood ; it mingles with thy tears ! 

Fix, fix those tortured orbs in peace and death, 6oo 

So thy sick throes shake not that crucifix. 



8o SELECTED POEMS. 

So those pale fingers play not with thy gore. 

O, horrible ! Thy name I will not speak, 

It hath become a curse. I see, I see 

The wise, the mild, the lofty, and the just, 605 

Whom thy slaves hate for being like to thee. 

Some hunted by foul lies from their heart's home. 

An early-chosen, late-lamented home ; 

As hooded ounces cling to the driven hind ; 

Some linked to corpses in unwholesome cells : 610 

Some — Hear I not the multitude laugh loud? 

Impaled in lingering fire : and mighty realms 

Float by my feet, like sea-uprooted isles. 

Whose sons are kneaded down in common blood 

By the red light of their own burning homes. 615 

Fury. 

Blood thou canst see, and fire ; and canst hear groans ; 
Worse things, unheard, unseen, remain behind. 

Prometheus. 
Worse ? 

Fury. 

In each human heart terror survives 
The ruin it has gorged : the loftiest fear 
All that they would disdain to think were true : 620 

Hypocrisy and custom make their minds 
The fanes of many a worship, now outworn. 
They dare not devise good for man's estate. 
And yet they know not that they do not dare. 
The good want power, but to weep barren tears. 625 

The powerful goodness want : worse need for them. 
The wise want love ; and those who love want wisdom ; 
And all best things are thus confused to ill. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 8i 

Many are strong and rich, and would be just, 

But live among their suffering fellow-men 630 

As if none felt : they know not what they do. 

Prometheus. 

Thy words are like a cloud of winged snakes; 
And yet I pity those they torture not. 

Fury. 
Thou pitiest them.? I speak no more! ^Vajiishes. 

Prometheus. 

Ah woe ! 
Ah woe ! Alas ! pain, pain ever, for ever ! 635 

I close my tearless eyes, but see more clear 
Thy works within my woe-illumed mind, 
Thou subtle tyrant ! Peace is in the grave. 
The grave hides all things beautiful and good : 
I am a God and cannot find it there, 640 

Nor would I seek it : for, though dread revenge, 
This is defeat, fierce king, not victory. 
The sights with which thou torturest gird my soul 
With new endurance, till the hour arrives 
When they shall be no types of things which are. 645 

Panthea. 
Alas ! what sawest thou ? 

Prometheus. 

There are two woes ; 
To speak, and to behold ; thou spare me one. 
Names are there. Nature's sacred watch-words, they 
Were borne aloft in bright emblazonry ; 



82 SELECTED POEMS. 

The nations thronged around, and cried aloud, 650 

As with one voice, Truth, liberty, and love ! 

Suddenly fierce confusion fell from heaven 

Among them : there was strife, deceit, and fear: 

Tyrants rushed in, and did divide the spoil. 

This was the shadow of the truth I saw. 655 

The Earth. 

I felt thy torture, son, with such mixed joy 

As pain and virtue give. To cheer thy state 

I bid ascend those subtle and fair spirits. 

Whose homes are the dim caves of human thought, 

And who inhabit, as birds wing the wind, 660 

Its world-surrounding aether : they behold 

Beyond that twilight realm, as in a glass. 

The future : may they speak comfort to thee ! 

Panthea. 

Look, sister, where a troop of spirits gather, 

Like flocks of clouds in spring's delightful weather, 665 

Thronging in the blue air ! 

lONE. 

And see ! more come. 
Like fountain-vapours when the winds are dumb. 
That climb up the ravine in scattered lines. 
And, hark ! is it the music of the pines ? 
Is it the lake 1 Is it the waterfall .? 670 

Panthea. 
'T is something sadder, sweeter far than all. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. ^Z 



Chorus of Spirits. 

From unremembered ages we 

Gentle guides and guardians be 

Of heaven-oppressed mortality; 

And we breathe, and sicken not, 675 

The atmosphere of human thought : 

Be it dim, and dank, and gray. 

Like a storm-extinguished day. 

Travelled o'er by dying gleams ; 

Be it bright as all between 680 

Cloudless skies and windless streams, 

Silent, liquid, and serene ; 
As the birds within the wind. 

As the fish within the wave. 
As the thoughts of man's own mind 685 

Float through all above the grave ; 
We make there our liquid lair. 
Voyaging cloudlike and unpent 
Through the boundless element : 
Thence we bear the prophecy 690 

Which begins and ends in thee ! 

lONE. 

More yet come, one by one : the air around them 
Looks radiant as the air around a star. 

First Spirit. 

On a battle-trumpet's blast 

I fled hither, fast, fast, fast, 695 

'Mid the darkness upward cast. 

From the dust of creeds outworn, 

From the tyrant's banner torn, 

Gathering round me, onward borne, 



84 SELECTED POEMS. 

There was mingled many a cry — 700 

Freedom! Hope! Death! Victory! 

Till they faded through the sky ; 

And one sound, above, around. 

One sound beneath, around, above, 

Was moving ; 't was the soul of love ; 705 

'T was the hope, the prophecy 

Which begins and ends in thee. 

Second Spirit. 

A rainbow's arch stood on the sea, 

Which rocked beneath immovably; 

And the triumphant storm did flee, 710 

Like a conqueror, swift and proud, 

Between, with many a captive cloud, 

A shapeless, dark and rapid crowd. 

Each by lightning riven in half : 

I heard the thunder hoarsely laugh: 7^5 

Mighty fleets were strewn like chaff 

And spread beneath a hell of death 

O'er the white waters. I alit 

On a great ship lightning-split, 

And speeded hither on the sigh 720 

Of one who gave an enemy 

His plank, then plunged aside to die. 

Third Spirit. 

I sate beside a sage's bed, 

And the lamp was burning red 

Near the book where he had fed, 725 

When a Dream with plumes of flame, 

To his pillow hovering came. 

And I knew it was the same 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 85 

Which had kindled long ago 

Pity, eloquence, and woe; IIP 

And the world awhile below 

Wore the shade, its lustre made. 

It has borne me here as fleet 

As Desire's lightning feet : 

I must ride it back ere morrow, 735 

Or the sage will wake in sorrow. 

Fourth Spirit. 

On a poet's lips I slept 

Dreaming like a love-adept 

In the sound his breathing kept; 

Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses, 74o 

But feeds on the aerial kisses 

Of shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses. 

He will watch from dawn to gloom 

The lake-reflected sun illume 

The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom, 745 

Nor heed nor see, what things they be ; 

But from these create he can 

Forms more real than living man, 

Nurslings of immortality ! 

One of these awakened me, 75° 

And I sped to succour thee. 

lONE. 

Behold'st thou not two shapes from the east and west 

Come, as two doves to one beloved nest, 

Twin nurslings of the all-sustaining air 

On swift still wings glide down the atmosphere t 755 

And, hark ! their sweet, sad voices ! 't is despair 

Mingled with love and then dissolved in sound. 



86 SELECTED POEMS. 

Panthea. 
Canst thou speak, sister? all my words are drowned. 

lONE. 

Their beauty gives me voice. See how they float 

On their sustaining wings of skiey grain, 760 

Orange and azure deepening into gold : 

Their soft smiles light the air like a star's fire. 

Chorus of Spirits. 
Hast thou beheld the form of Love .'* 

Fifth Spirit. 

As over wide dominions 
I sped, like some swift cloud that wings the wide air's 

wildernesses, 
That planet-crested shape swept by on lightning-braided 

pinions, 765 

Scattering the liquid joy of life from his ambrosial tresses: 
His footsteps paved the world with light ; but as I passed 

't was fading. 
And hollow Ruin yawned behind : great sages bound in 

madness. 
And headless patriots, and pale youths who perished, 

unupbraiding. 
Gleamed in the night. I wandered o'er, till thou, O King 

of sadness, 770 

Turned by thy smile the worst I saw to recollected glad- 
ness. 

Sixth Spirit. 

Ah, sister ! Desolation is a delicate thing : 

It walks not on the earth, it floats not on the air, 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 87 

But treads with killing footstep, and fans with silent wing 
The tender hopes which in their hearts the best and 

gentlest bear; 775 

Who, soothed to false repose by the fanning plumes above 
And the music-stirring motion of its soft and busy feet, 
Dream visions of aerial joy, and call the monster, Love, 
And wake, and find the shadow Pain, as he whom now 
we greet. 

Chorus. 
Though Ruin now Love's shadow be, 780 

Following him, destroyingly, 

On Death's white and winged steed. 
Which the fleetest cannot flee, 

Trampling down both flower and weed, 
Man and beast, and foul and fair, 785 

Like a tempest through the air ; 
Thou shalt quell this horseman grim, 
Woundless though in heart or limb. 

Prometheus. 
Spirits ! how know ye this shall be ? 

Chorus. 

lu the atmosphere we breathe, 79° 

As buds grow red when the snow-storms flee. 

From spring gathering up beneath. 
Whose mild winds shake the elder brake. 
And the wandering herdsmen know 
That the white-thorn soon will blow: 795 

Wisdom, Justice, Love, and Peace, 
When they struggle to increase. 

Are to us as soft winds be 

To shepherd boys, the prophecy 

Which begins and ends in thee. 800 



88 SELECTED POEMS. 

lONE. 
Where are the Spirits fled ? 

Panthea. 

Only a sense 
Remains of them, like the omnipotence 
Of music, when the inspired voice and lute 
Languish, ere yet the responses are mute, 
Which through the deep and labyrinthine soul, 805 

Like echoes through long caverns, wind and roll. 

Prometheus. 

How fair these air-born shapes ! and yet I feel 

Most vain all hope but love ; and thou art far, 

Asia ! who, when my being overflowed, 

Wert like a golden chalice to bright wine 810 

Which else had sunk into the thirsty dust. 

All things are still : alas ! how heavily 

This quiet morning weighs upon my heart ; 

Though I should dream I could even sleep with grief 

If slumber were denied not. I would fain 815 

Be what it is my destiny to be. 

The saviour and the strength of suffering man, 

Or sink into the original gulph of things : 

There is no agony, and no solace left ; 

Earth can console. Heaven can torment no more. 820 

Panthea. 

Hast thou forgotten one who watches thee 
The cold dark night, and never sleeps but when 
The shadow of thy spirit falls on her .? 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. §9 

Prometheus. 
I said all hope was vain but love : thou lovest. 

Panthea. 

Deeply in truth; but the eastern star looks white, 825 

And Asia waits in that far Indian vale 

The scene of her sad exile ; rugged once 

And desolate and frozen, like this ravine ; 

But now invested with fair flowers and herbs, 

And haunted by sweet airs and sounds, which flow 830 

Among the woods and waters, from the aether 

Of her transforming presence, which would fade 

If it were mingled not with thine. Farewell ! 

END OF THE FIRST ACT. 

ACT II. 

Scene I. Morning. A lovely Vale in the Indian Caucasus. 
Asia alone. 

Asia. 

From all the blasts of heaven thou hast descended : 

Yes, like a spirit, like a thought, which makes 

Unwonted tears throng to the horny eyes, 

And beatings haunt the desolated heart. 

Which should have learnt repose : thou hast descended 5 

Cradled in tempests ; thou dost wake, O Spring ! 

O child of many winds ! As suddenly 

Thou comest as the memory of a dream. 

Which now is sad because it hath been sweet ; 

Like genius, or like joy which riseth up 10 

As from the earth, clothing with golden clouds 

The desert of our life. 



90 SELECTED POEMS. 

This is the season, this the day, the hour - 

At sunrise thou shouldst come, sweet sister mine, 

Too long desired, too long delaying, come! 15 

How like death-worms the wingless moments crawl ! 

The point of one white star is quivering still 

Deep in the orange light of widening morn 

Beyond the purple mountains : through a chasm 

Of wind-divided mist the darker lake 20 

Reflects it : now it wanes : it gleams again 

As the waves fade, and as the burning threads 

Of woven cloud unravel in pale air: 

'T is lost ! and through yon peaks of cloud-like snow 

The roseate sunlight quivers: hear I riot 25 

The yEolian music of her sea-green plumes 

Winnowing the crimson dawn ? 

PanthEA enters. 

I feel, I see 
Those eyes which burn through smiles that fade in tears, 
Like stars half quenched in mists of silver dew. 
Beloved and most beautiful, who wearest 3° 

The shadow of that soul by which I live, 
How late thou art ! the sphered sun had climbed 
The sea ; my heart was sick with hope, before 
The printless air felt thy belated plumes, 

Panthea, 

Pardon, great Sister! but my wings were faint 35 

With the delight of a remembered dream. 

As are the noon-tide plumes of summer winds 

Satiate with sweet flowers, I was wont to sleep 

Peacefully, and awake refreshed and calm 

Before the sacred Titan's fall, and thy 40 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 91 

Unhappy love, had made, through use and pity, 

Both love and woe familiar to my heart 

As they had grown to thine : erewhile I slept 

Under the glaucous caverns of old Ocean 

Within dim bowers of green and purple moss, 45 

Our young lone's soft and milky arms 

Locked then, as now, behind my dark, moist hair, 

While my shut eyes and cheek were pressed within 

The folded depth of her life-breathing bosom : 

But not as now, since I am made the wind 5° 

Which fails beneath the music that I bear 

Of thy most wordless converse ; since dissolved 

Into the sense with which love talks, my rest 

Was troubled and yet sweet ; my waking hours 

Too full of care and pain. 

Asia. 

Lift up thine eyes, 55 

And let me read thy dream. 

Panthea. 

As I have said 
With our sea-sister at his feet I slept. 
The mountain mists, condensing at our voice 
Under the moon, had spread their snowy flakes, 
From the keen ice shielding our linked sleep. . 60 

Then two dreams came. One, I remember not. 
But in the other his pale wound-worn limbs 
Fell from Prometheus, and the azure night 
Grew radiant with the glory of that form 
Which lives unchanged within, and his voice fell 65 

Like music which makes giddy the dim brain. 
Faint with intoxication of keen joy: 
" Sister of her whose footsteps pave the world 



92 SELECTED POEMS. 

" With loveliness — more fair than aught but her, 

"Whose shadow thou art — lift thine eyes on me." 7o 

I lifted them : the overpowering light 

Of that immortal shape was shadowed o'er » 

By love ; which, from his soft and flowing limbs. 

And passion-parted lips, and keen, faint eyes, 

Steamed forth like vaporous fire ; an atmosphere 75 

Which wrapped me in its all-dissolving power. 

As the warm aether of the morning sun 

Wraps ere it drinks some cloud of wandering dew. 

I saw not, heard not, moved not, only felt 

His presence flow and mingle through my blood 80 

Till it became his life, and his grew mine, 

And I was thus absorbed, until it passed. 

And like the vapours when the sun sinks down, 

Gathering again in drops upon the pines. 

And tremulous as they, in the deep night 85 

My being was condensed ; and as the rays 

Of thought were slowly gathered, I could hear 

His voice, whose accents lingered ere they died 

Like footsteps of weak melody : thy name 

Among the many sounds alone I heard 9° 

Of what might be articulate ; though still 

I listened through the night when sound was none. 

lone wakened then, and said to me : 

" Canst thou divine what troubles me to-night ? 

" I always knew what I desired before, 95 

" Nor ever found delight to wish in vain. 

" But now I cannot tell thee what I seek ; 

" I know not ; something sweet, since it is sweet 

" Even to desire ; it is thy sport, false sister ; 

"Thou hast discovered some enchantment old, 100 

" Whose spells have stolen my spirit as I slept 

" And mingled it with thine : for when just now 



PROMETHEUS UXBOUND. 93 

<' We kissed, I felt within thy parted lips 

" The sweet air that sustained me, and the warmth 

" Of the life-blood, for loss of which I faint, 105 

".Quivered between our intertwining arms." 

I answered not, for the Eastern star grew pale, 

But fled to thee. 

Asia. 

Thou speakest, but thy words 
Are as the air : I feel them not : Oh, lift 
Thine eyes, that I may read his written soul ! "o 

Panthea. 

I lift them though they droop beneath the load 
Of that they would express : what canst thou see 
But thine own fairest shadow imaged there ? 

Asia. 

Thine eyes are like the deep, blue, boundless heaven 
Contracted to two circles underneath "5 

Their long, fine lashes ; dark, far, measureless, 
Orb within orb, and line through line inwoven. 

Panthea. 
Why lookest thou as if a spirit passed ? 

Asia. 

There is a change : beyond their inmost depth 

I see a shade, a shape : 't is He, arrayed 

In the soft light of his own smiles, which spread 

Like radiance from the cloud-surrounded moon. 

Prometheus, it is thine ! depart not yet ! 

Say not those smiles that we shall meet again 

Within that bright pavilion which their beams 



[20 



94 SELECTED POEMS. 

Shall build on the waste world ? The dream is told. 

What shape is that between us ? Its rude hair 

Roughens the wind that lifts it, its regard 

Is wild and quick, yet 't is a thing of air 

For through its gray robe gleams the golden dew 13° 

Whose stars the noon has quenched not. 

Dream. 

Follow ! Follow ! 
Panthea. 

It is mine other dream. 

Asia. 

It disappears. 

Panthea. 

It passes now into my mind. Methought 

As we sate here, the flower-infolding buds 

Burst on yon lightning-blasted almond-tree, 135 

When swift from the white Scythian wilderness 

A wind swept forth wrinkling the Earth with frost : 

I looked, and all the blossoms were blown down ; 

But on each leaf was stamped, as the blue bells 

Of Hyacinth tell Apollo's written grief, 140 

O, FOLLOW, follow! 

Asia. 

As you speak, your words 
Fill, pause by pause, my own forgotten sleep 
With shapes. Methought among the lawns together 
We wandered, underneath the young gray dawn. 
And multitudes of dense white fleecy clouds i45 

Were wandering in thick flocks along the mountains 
Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind ; 
And the white dew on the new bladed grass, 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 95 

Just piercing the dark earth, hung silently: 

And there was more which I remember not: 150 

But on the shadows of the morning clouds, 

Athwart the purple mountain slope, was written 

Follow, O, follow! as they vanished by, 

And on each herb, from which Heaven's dew had 

fallen. 
The like was stamped, as with a withering fire. iS5 

A wind arose among the pines ; it shook 
The clinging music from their boughs, and then 
Low, sweet, faint sounds, like the farewell of ghosts, 
Were heard: Oh, follow, follow, follow me! 
And then I said : " Panthea, look on me." 160 

But in the depth of those beloved eyes 
Still I saw, follow, follow! 



Echo. 



Panthea. 



Follow, follow! 



The crags, this clear spring morning, mock our voices 
As they were spirit-tongued. 

Asia. 

It is some being 
Around the crags. What fine clear sounds ! O, list ! 165 

Echoes {unseen). 

Echoes we : listen ! 

W^e cannot stay: 
As dew-stars glisten 

Then fade away — 

Child of Ocean ! 170 



96 SELECTED POEMS. 

Asia. 

Hark ! Spirits speak. The liquid responses 
Of their aerial tongues yet sound. 



Panthea. 



Echoes. 



I hear. 



O, follow, follow, 

As our voice recedeth 
Through the caverns hollow, 17 5 

Where the forest spreadeth ; 

{More distant^ 

O, follow, follow! 

Through the caverns hollow. 
As the song floats thou pursue, 
Where the wild bee never flew, 180 

Through the noontide darkness deep, 
By the odour-breathing sleep 
Of faint night flowers, and the waves 
At the fountain-lighted caves. 

While our music, wild and sweet, 185 

Mocks thy gently falling feet, 

Child of Ocean ! 

Asia. 

Shall we pursue the sound ? It grows more faint 
And distant. 

Panthea. , 

List ! the strain floats nearer now. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 97 

Echoes. 
In the world unknown 190 

Sleeps a voice unspoken ; 
By thy step alone 

Can its rest be broken ; 
Child of Ocean! 

Asia. 
How the notes sink upon the ebbing wind ! 195 

Echoes. 

O, follow, follow! 

Through the caverns hollow, 
As the song floats thou pursue, 
By the woodland noon-tide dew; 
By the forests, lakes, and fountains 200 

Through the many-folded mountains ; 
To the rents, and gulphs, and chasms, 
Where the Earth reposed from spasms, 
On the day when He and thou 
Parted, to commingle now; 205 

Child of Ocean ! 

Asia. 

Come, sweet Panthea, link thy hand in mine. 
And follow, ere the voices fade away. 



Scene II. A Forest, intermingled with Rocks and Caverns. Asia 
and Panthea pass into it. Two young Faiins are sitting on a 
Rock, listening. 

Semichorus I. OF Spirits. 

The path through which that lovely twain 
Have passed, by cedar, pine, and yew. 



98 SELECTED POEMS. 

And each dark tree that ever grew, 

Is curtained out from Heaven's wide blue ; 
Nor sun, nor moon, nor wind, nor rain, 5 

Can pierce its interwoven bowers, 

Nor aught, save where some cloud of dew, 
Drifted along the earth-creeping breeze, 
Between the trunks of the hoar trees, 

Hangs each a pearl in the pale flowers lo 

Of the green laurel, blown anew; 
And bends, and then fades silently, 
One frail and fair anemone : 
Or when some star of many a one 

That climbs and wanders through steep night, 15 

Has found the cleft through which alone 
Beams fall from high those depths upon 
Ere it is borne away, away. 
By the swift Heavens that cannot stay. 
It scatters drops of golden light, 20 

Like lines of rain that ne'er unite : 
And the gloom divine is all around. 
And underneath is the mossy ground ; 

Semichorus II. 

There the voluptuous nightingales. 

Are awake through all the broad noon-day. 25 

When one with bliss or sadness fails. 

And through the windless ivy-boughs, 

Sick with sweet love, droops dying away 
On its mate's music-panting bosom ; 
Another from the swinging blossom, 30 

Watching to catch the languid close 

Of the last strain, then lifts on high 

The wings of the weak melody, 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 99 

'Till some new strain of feeling bear 

The song, and all the woods are mute ; 35 

When there is heard through the dim air 
The rush of wings, and rising there 

Like many a lake-surrounded flute, 
Sounds overflow the listener's brain 
So sweet, that joy is almost pain. 40 

Semichorus I. 

There those enchanted eddies play 

Of echoes, music-tongued, which draw, 

By Demogorgon's mighty law. 

With melting rapture, or sweet awe, 
All spirits on that secret way; 45 

As inland boats are driven to Ocean 
Down streams made strong with mountain-thaw: 
And first there comes a gentle sound 
To those in talk or slumber bound, 

And wakes the destined. Soft emotion 5° 

Attracts, impels them: those who saw 

Say from the breathing earth behind 

There steams a plume-uplifting wind 
Which drives them on their path, while they 

Believe their own swift wings and feet 55 

The sweet desires within obey: 
And so they float upon their way. 
Until, still sweet, but loud and strong, 
The storm of sound is driven along. 

Sucked up and hurrying : as they fleet 60 

Behind, its gathering billows meet 
And to the fatal mountain bear 
Like clouds amid the yielding ain 



lOO SELECTED POEMS. 



First Faun. 



Canst thou imagine where those spirits live 

Which make such delicate music in the woods ? 65 

We haunt within the least frequented caves 

And closest coverts, and we know these wilds, 

Yet never meet them, though we hear them oft : 

Where may they hide themselves ? 

Second Faun. 

'T is hard to tell : 
I have heard those more skilled in spirits say, 7° 

The bubbles, which the enchantment of the sun 
Sucks from the pale faint water-flowers that pave 
The oozy bottom of clear lakes and pools. 
Are the pavilions where such dwell and float 
Under the green and golden atmosphere 75 

Which noon-tide kindles through the woven leaves ; 
And when these burst, and the thin fiery air. 
The which they breathed within those lucent domes. 
Ascends to flow like meteors through the night, 
They ride on them, and rein their headlong speed, 80 

And bow their burning crests, and glide in fire 
Under the waters of the earth again. 

First Faun. 

If such live thus, have others other lives, 

Under pink blossoms or within the bells 

Of meadow flowers, or folded violets deep, 85 

Or on their dying odours, when they die, 

Or in the sunlight of the sphered dew? 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. loi 



Second Faun. 



Aye, many more which we may well divine. 

But, should we stay to speak, noontide would come, 

And thwart Silenus find his goats undrawn, 90 

And grudge to sing those wise and lovely songs 

Of fate, and chance, and God, and Chaos old. 

And Love, and the chained Titan's woful doom, 

And how he shall be loosed, and make the earth 

One brotherhood : delightful strains which cheer 95 

Our solitary twilights, and which charm 

To silence the unenvying nightingales. 

Scene III. A Pinnacle of Rock among Mountains: 
Asia and Panthea. 

Panthea. 

Hither the sound has borne us — to the realm 

Of Demogorgon, and the mighty portal. 

Like a volcano's meteor-breathing chasm, 

Whence the oracular vapour is hurled up 

Which lonely men drink wandering in their youth, 5 

And call truth, virtue, love, genius, or joy, 

That maddening wine of life, whose dregs they drain 

To deep intoxication ; and uplift. 

Like Maenads who cry aloud, Evoe ! Evoe ! 

The voice which is contagion to the world. 10 

Asia. 

Fit throne for such a Power ! Magnificent ! 

How glorious art thou. Earth ! And if thou be 

The shadow of some spirit lovelier still. 

Though evil stain its work, and it should be 

Like its creation, weak yet beautiful, 15 



I02 SELECTED POEMS. 

I could fall down and worship that and thee. 

Even now my heart adoreth : Wonderful ! 

Look, sister, ere the vapour dim thy brain : 

Beneath is a wide plain of billowy mist, 

As a lake, paving in the morning sky, 20 

With azure waves which burst in silver light, 

Some Indian vale. Behold it, rolling on 

Under the curdUng winds, and islanding 

The peak whereon we stand, midway, around, 

Encinctured by the dark and blooming forests, 25 

Dim twilight-lawns, and stream-illumined caves. 

And wind-enchanted shapes of wandering mist; 

And far on high the keen sky-cleaving mountains 

From icy spires of sun-like radiance fling 

The dawn, as lifted Ocean's dazzling spray, 3° 

From some Atlantic islet scattered up. 

Spangles the wind with lamp-like water-drops. 

The vale is girdled with their walls, a howl 

Of cataracts from their thaw-cloven ravines 

Satiates the listening wind, continuous, vast, 35 

Awful as silence. Hark! the rushing snow! 

The sun-awakened avalanche! whose mass. 

Thrice sifted by the storm, had gathered there . 

Flake after flake, in heaven-defying minds 

As thought by thought is piled, till some great truth 40 

Is loosened, and the nations echo round, 

Shaken to their roots, as do the mountains now. 

Panthea. 

Look how the gusty sea of mist is breaking 

In crimson foam, even at our feet ! it rises 

As Ocean at the enchantment of the moon 45 

Round foodless men wrecked on some oozy isle. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 103 



Asia. 



The fragments of the cloud are scattered up ; 

The wind that Ufts them disentwines my hair ; 

Its billows now sweep o'er mine eyes ; my brain 

Grows dizzy; I see thin shapes within the mist. 5° 

Panthea. 

A countenance with beckoning smiles : there burns 
An azure fire within its golden locks ! 
Another and another : hark! they speak! 



Song of Spirits. 

To the deep, to the deep, 

Down, down! 55 

Through the shade of sleep, 
Through the cloudy strife 
Of Death and of Life ; 
Through the veil and the bar 

Of things which seem and are 60 

Even to the steps of the remotest throne, 

Down, down! 

While the sound whirls around, 

Down, down ! 
As the fawn draws the hound, 65 

As the lightning the vapour, 
As a weak moth the taper ; 
Death, despair; love, sorrow; 
Time both ; to-day, to-morrow ; 
As steel obeys the spirit of the stone, 7° 

Down, down ! 



I04 SELECTED POEMS. 

Through the gray, void abysm, 

Down, down ! 
Where the air is no prism, 

And the moon and stars are not, 75 

And the cavern-crags wear not 
The radiance of Heaven, 
Nor the gloom to Earth given, 
Where there is one pervading, one alone, 

Down, down ! 80 

In the depth of the deep 

Down, down ! 
. Like veiled lightning asleep. 
Like the spark nursed in embers, 
The last look Love remembers, 85 

Like a diamond, which shines 
On the dark wealth of mines, 
A spell is treasured but for thee alone. 

Down, down ! 

We have bound thee, we guide thee ; 90 

Down, down ! 
With the bright form beside thee ; 
Resist not the weakness. 
Such strength is in meekness 

That the Eternal, the Immortal, 95 

Must unloose through life's portal 
The snake-like Doom coiled underneath his 
throne 

By that alone. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 105 

Scene IV. 7%^ (7rt:z/^ ^Demogorgon. Asia a«^/ Panthea. 

Panthea. 
What veiled form sits on that ebon throne? 

Asia. 
The veil has fallen. 

Panthea. 

I see a mighty darkness 
Filling the seat of power, and rays of gloom 
Dart round, as light from the meridian sun, 
Ungazed upon and shapeless ; neither limb, 5 

Nor form, nor outline ; yet we feel it is 
A living Spirit. 

Demogorgon. 

Ask what thou wouldst know. 

Asia. 
What canst thou tell ? 

Demogorgon. 
All things thou dar'st demand. 

Asia. ^ 

Who made the living world ? 

Demogorgon. 
God. 

Asia. 

Who made all 
That it contains 1 thought, passion, reason, will, 10 

Imagination ? 



io6 SELECTED POEMS. 

Demogorgon. 
God : Almighty God. 

Asia. 

Who made that sense which, when the winds of spring 

In rarest visitation, or the voice 

Of one beloved heard in youth alone, 

Fills the faint eyes with falling tears which dim 15 

The radiant looks of unbewailing flowers. 

And leaves this peopled earth a solitude 

When it returns no more .'' 

Demogorgon. 

Merciful God. 

Asia. 

And who made terror, madness, crime, remorse. 

Which from the links of the great chain of things, 20 

To every thought within the mind of man 

Sway and drag heavily, and each one reels 

Under the load towards the pit of death ; 

Abandoned hope, and love that turns to hate ; 

And self-contempt, bitterer to drink than blood ; 25 

Pain, whose unheeded and familiar speech 

Is howling, and keen shrieks, day after day; 

And Hell, or the sharp fear of Hell ? 



Demogorgon. 



Asia. 



He reigns. 



Utter his name : a world pining in pain 

Asks but his name : curses shall drag him down. 3° 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 107 



Demogorgon. 
He reigns. 

Asia. 

I feel, I know it : who .'' 
Demogorgon. 



He reigns. 



Asia. 

Who reigns ? There was the Heaven and Earth at first, 

And Light and Love; then Saturn, from whose throne 

Time fell, an envious shadow : such the state 

Of the earth's primal spirits beneath his sway, 35 

As the calm joy of flowers and living leaves 

Before the wind or sun has withered them. 

And semivital worms ; but he refused 

The birthright of their being, knowledge, power, 

The skill which wields the elements, the thought 40 

Which pierces this dim universe like light, 

Self-empire, and the majesty of love ; 

For thirst of which they fainted. Then Prometheus 

Gave wisdom, which is strength, to Jupiter, 

And with this law alone, " Let man be free," 45 

Clothed him with the dominion of wide Heaven. 

To know nor faith, nor love, nor law; to be 

Omnipotent but friendless is to reign ; 

And Jove now reigned ; for on the race of man 

First famine, and then toil, and then disease, 50 

Strife, wounds, and ghastly death unseen before, 

Fell ; and the unseasonable seasons drove 

With alternating shafts of frost and fire. 

Their shelterless, pale tribes to mountain caves : 

And in their desert hearts fierce wants he sent, 55 

And mad disquietudes, and shadows idle 



io8 SELECTED POEMS. 

Of unreal good, which levied mutual war, 

So ruining the lair wherein they raged. 

Prometheus saw, and waked the legioned hopes 

Which sleep within folded Elysian flowers, 60 

Nepenthe, Moly, Amaranth, fadeless blooms. 

That they might hide with thin and rainbow wings 

The shape of Death ; and Love he sent to bind 

The disunited tendrils of that vine 

Which bears the wine of life, the human heart ; 65 

And he tamed fire which, like some beast of prey. 

Most terrible, but lovely, played beneath 

The frown of man ; and tortured to his will 

Iron and gold, the slaves and signs of power, 

And gems and poisons, and all subtlest forms 70 

Hidden beneath the mountains and the waves. 

He gave man speech, and speech created thought, 

Which is the measure of the universe ; 

And Science struck the thrones of earth and heaven, 

Which shook, but fell not; and the harmonious mind 75 

Poured itself forth in all-prophetic song ; 

And music lifted up the listening spirit 

Until it walked, exempt from mortal care, 

Godlike, o'er the clear billows of sweet sound ; 

And human hands first mimicked and then mocked, 80 

With moulded limbs more lovely than its own, 

The human form, till marble grew divine ; 

And mothers, gazing, drank the love men see 

Reflected in their race, behold, and perish. 

He told the hidden power of herbs and springs, 85 

And Disease drank and slept. Death grew like sleep. 

He taught the implicated orbits woven 

Of the wide-wandering stars ; and how the sun 

Changes his lair, and by what secret spell 

The pale moon is transformed, when her broad eye 9° 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 109 

Gazes not on the interlunar sea : 

He taught to rule, as life directs the limbs, 

The tempest-winged chariots of the Ocean, 

And the Celt knew the Indian. Cities then 

Were built, and through their snow-like columns flowed 95 

The warm winds, and the azure sether shone, 

And the blue sea and shadowy hills were seen. 

Such, the alleviations of his state, 

Prometheus gave to man, for which he hangs 

Withering in destined pain : but who rains down 100 

Evil, the immedicable plague, which, while 

Man looks on his creation like a God 

And sees that it is glorious, drives him on 

The wreck of his own will, the scorn of earth, 

The outcast, the abandoned, the alone ? 105 

Not Jove : while yet his frown shook heaven, aye, when 

His adversary from adamantine chains 

Cursed him, he trembled like a slave. Declare 

Who is his master? Is he too a slave.? 

Demogorgon. 

All spirits are enslaved which serve things evil: no 

Thou knowest if Jupiter be such or no. 

Asia. 
Whom calledst thou God ? 

Demogorgon. 

I spoke but as ye speak. 
For Jove is the supreme of living things. 

Asia. 
Who is the master of the slave ? 



no SELECTED POEMS. 

Demogorgon. 

If the abysm 
Could vomit forth its secrets. But a voice "5 

Is wanting, the deep truth is imageless ; 
For what would it avail to bid thee gaze 
On the revolving world ? What to bid speak 
Fate, Time, Occasion, Chance and Change ? To these 
All things are subject but eternal Love. 120 

Asia. 

So much I asked before, and my heart gave 

The response thou hast given ; and of such truths 

Each to itself must be the oracle. 

One more demand ; and do thou answer me 

As mine own soul would answer, did it know 125 

That which I ask. Prometheus shall arise 

Henceforth the sun of this rejoicing world : 

When shall the destined hour arrive ? 

Demogorgon. 

Behold ! 
Asia. 

The rocks are cloven, and through the purple night 

I see cars drawn by rainbow-winged steeds 13° 

Which trample the dim winds : in each there stands 

A wild-eyed charioteer urging their flight. 

Some look behind, as fiends pursued them there, 

And yet I see no shapes but the keen stars : 

Others, with burning eyes, lean forth, and drink i35 

With eager lips the wind of their own speed. 

As if the thing they loved fled on before, 

And now, even now, they clasped it. Their bright locks 

Stream like a comet's flashing hair : they all 

Sweep onward. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 



Demogorgon. 



These are the immortal Hours, 140 

Of whom thou didst demand. One waits for thee. 

Asia. 

A spirit with a dreadful countenance 

Checks its dark chariot by the craggy gulph. 

Unlike thy brethren, ghastly charioteer, 

Who art thou .? Whither wouldst thou bear me? Speak! M5 

Spirit. 

I am the shadow of a destiny 
More dread than is my aspect: ere yon planet 
Has set, the darkness which ascends with me 
Shall wrap in lasting night heaven's kingless throne. 

Asia. 
What meanest thou ? 

Panthea. 

That terrible shadow floats 1 5° 

Up from its throne, as may the lurid smoke 
Of earthquake-ruined cities o'er the sea. 
Lo ! it ascends the car ; the coursers fly 
Terrified : watch its path among the stars 
Blackening the night ! 

Asia. 
Thus I am answered: strange! i55 

Panthea, 

See, near the verge, another chariot stays ; 

An ivory shell inlaid with crimson fire. 

Which comes and goes within its sculptured rim 



112 SELECTED POEMS. 

Of delicate strange tracery ; the young spirit 

That guides it has the dove-like eyes of hope ; i6o 

How its soft smiles attract the soul ! as light 

Lures winged insects through the lampless air. 

Spirit. 

My coursers are fed with the lightning, 

They drink of the whirlwind's stream, 
And when the red morning is brightning 165 

They bathe in the fresh sunbeam ; 

They have strength for their swiftness I deem, 
Then ascend with me, daughter of Ocean. 

I desire : and their speed makes night kindle ; 

I fear : they outstrip the Typhoon ; 170 

Ere the cloud piled on Atlas can dwindle 
We encircle the earth and the moon : 
We shall rest from long labours at noon : 

Then ascend with me, daughter of Ocean. 



Scene V. The Car pauses within a Cloud on the Top of a snoivy 
Mountain. Asia, Panthea, and the Spirit of the Hour. 

Spirit. 

On the brink of the night and the morning 
My coursers are wont to respire ; 

But the Earth has just whispered a warning 
That their flight must be swifter than fire : 
They shall drink the hot speed of desire ! 

Asia. 

Thou breathest on their nostrils, but my breath 
Would give them swifter speed. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 113 

Spirit. 

Alas ! it could not. 

Panthea. 

Oh Spirit ! pause, and tell whence is the light 
Which fills the cloud ? the sun is yet unrisen. 

Spirit. 

The sun will rise not until noon. Apollo 10 

Is held in heaven by wonder ; and the light 
Which fills this vapour, as the aerial hue 
Of fountain-gazing roses fills the water, 
Flows from thy mighty sister. 

Panthea. 

Yes, I feel — 

Asia. 

What is it with thee, sister? Thou art pale. 15 

Panthea. 

How thou art changed ! I dare not look on thee ; 

I feel but see thee not. I scarce endure 

The radiance of thy beauty. Some good change 

Is working in the elements, which suffer 

Thy presence thus unveiled. The Nereids tell 20 

That on the day when the clear hyaline 

Was cloven at thy uprise, and thou didst stand 

Within a veined shell, which floated on 

Over the calm floor of the crystal sea. 

Among the ^gean isles, and by the shores 25 

Which bear thy name ; love, like the atmosphere 

Of the sun's fire filling the living world, 

Burst from thee, and illumined earth and heaven 



114 SELECTED POEMS. 

And the deep ocean and the sunless caves 
And all that dwells within them ; till grief cast 30 

Eclipse upon the soul from which it came : 
Such art thou now ; nor is it I alone, 
Thy sister, thy companion, thine own chosen one, 
But the whole world which seeks thy sympathy. 
Hear'st thou not sounds i' the air which speak the love 35 
Of all articulate beings ? Feel'st thou not 
The inanimate winds enamoured of thee ? List ! 

{Music.) 

Asia. 

Thy words are sweeter than aught else but his 

Whose echoes they are : yet all love is sweet. 

Given or returned. Common as light is love, 40 

And its familiar voice wearies not ever. 

Like the wide heaven, the all-sustaining air. 

It makes the reptile equal to the God : 

They who inspire it most are fortunate. 

As I am now; but those who feel it most 45 

Are happier still, after long sufferings. 

As I shall soon become. 

Panthea. 

List ! Spirits speak. 

Voice /;/ the Air, singi?ig. 

Life of Life ! thy lips enkindle 

With their love the breath between them ; 

And thy smiles before they dwindle 5° 

Make the cold air fire ; then screen them 

In those looks, where whoso gazes 

Faints, entangled in their mazes. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 115 

Child of Light ! thy limbs are burning 

Through the vest which seems to hide them ; 55 

As the radiant lines of morning 

Through the clouds ere they divide them ; 
And this atmosphere divinest 
Shrouds thee wheresoe'er thou shin est. 

Fair are others ; none beholds thee, 60 

But thy voice sounds low and tender 
Like the fairest, for it folds thee 

From the sight, that liquid splendour. 
And all feel, yet see thee never, 
As I feel now, lost for ever ! 65 

Lamp of Earth ! where'er thou movest 

Its dim shapes are clad with brightness. 
And the souls of whom thou lovest 

Walk upon the winds with lightness. 
Till they fail, as I am failing, 7° 

Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing ! 

Asia. 

My soul is an enchanted boat, 

Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float 
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing ; 

And thine doth like an angel sit 75 

Beside a helm conducting it. 
Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing. 

It seems to float ever, for ever. 

Upon that many-winding river. 

Between mountains, woods, abysses, 80 

A paradise of wildernesses ! 
Till, like one in slumber bound, 



Ii6 SELECTED POEMS. 

Borne to the ocean, I float down, around. 
Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound : 

Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions 85 

In music's most serene dominions ; 
Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven. 

And we sail on, away, afar. 

Without a course, without a star. 
But by the instinct of sweet music driven'; 9° 

Till through Elysian garden islets 

By thee, most beautiful of pilots, 

Where never mortal pinnace glided, 

The boat of my desire is guided : 
Realms where the air we breathe is love, 95 

Which in the winds and on the waves doth move, 
Harmonizing this earth with what we feel above. 

We have passed Age's icy caves. 

And Manhood's dark and tossing waves. 
And Youth's smooth ocean, smiling to betray: 100 

Be3^ond the glassy gulphs we flee 

Of shadow-peopled Infancy, 
Through Death and Birth, to a diviner day; 

A paradise of vaulted bowers, 

Lit by downward-gazing flowers, 105 

And watery paths that wind between 

Wildernesses calm and green, 
Peopled by shapes too bright to see. 
And rest, having beheld ; somewhat like thee ; 
Which walk upon the sea, and chaunt melodiously! no 

END OF THE SECOND ACT. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. n? 



ACT III. 



Scene I. Heaven. Jupiter f?« /z/j Throne; TnKiis and the 
other Deities assembled. 

Jupiter. 

Ye congregated powers of heaven, who share 

The glory and the strength of him ye serve, 

Rejoice ! henceforth I am omnipotent. 

All else had been subdued to me ; alone 

The soul of man, like unextinguished fire, 5 

Yet burns towards heaven with fierce reproach and doubt, 

And lamentation, and reluctant prayer. 

Hurling up insurrection, which might make 

Our antique empire insecure, though built 

On eldest faith, and hell's coeval, fear; lo 

And though my curses through the pendulous air. 

Like snow on herbless peaks, fall flake by flake, 

And cling to it ; though under my wrath's night 

It climb the crags of life, step after step. 

Which wound it, as ice w^ounds unsandalled feet, ^5 

It yet remains supreme o'er misery. 

Aspiring, unrepressed, yet soon to fall : 

Even now have I begotten a strange wonder, 

That fatal child, the terror of the earth. 

Who waits but till the destined hour arrive, 20 

Bearing from Demogorgon's vacant throne 

The dreadful might of ever-living limbs 

Which clothed that awful spirit unbeheld. 

To redescend, and trample out the spark. 

Pour forth heaven's wine, Idaean Ganymede, 25 

And let it fill the Daedal cups like fire, 

And from the flower-inwoven soil divine 

Ye all-triumphant harmonies arise. 



ii8 SELECTED POEMS. 

As clew from earth under the twilight stars : 

Drink ! be the nectar circling through your veins 30 

The soul of joy, ye ever-living Gods, 

Till exultation burst in one wide voice 

Like music from Elysian winds. 

And thou 
Ascend beside me, veiled in the light 

Of the desire which makes thee one with me, 35 

Thetis, bright image of eternity! 
When thou didst cry, " Insufferable might ! 
"God ! Spare me ! I sustain not the quick flames, 
" The penetrating presence ; all my being, 
" Like him whom the Numidian seps did thaw 40 

" Into a dew with poison, is dissolved, 
" Sinking through its foundations : " even then 
Two mighty spirits, mingling, made a third 
Mightier than either, which, unbodied now. 
Between us floats, felt, although unbeheld, 45 

Waiting the incarnation, which ascends, 
(Hear ye the thunder of the fiery wheels 
Griding the winds ?) from Demogorgon's throne. 
Victory! victory! Feel'st thou not, O world. 
The earthquake of his chariot thundering up 5° 

Olympus ? 

[ The Car of the HouR arrives. Demogorgon descends, 
and moves towards the Throne <?/" Jupiter. 

Awful shape, what art thou ? Speak ! 

Demogorgon. 

Eternity. Demand no direr name. 

Descend, and follow me down the abyss. 

I am thy child, as thou wert Saturn's child; 

Mightier than thee : and we must dwell together 55 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 119 

Henceforth in darkness. Lift thy lightnings not. 

The tyranny of heaven none may retain, 

Or reassume, or hold, succeeding thee : 

Yet if thou wilt, as 't is the destiny 

Of trodden worms to writhe till they are dead, 60 

Put forth thy might. 

Jupiter. 

Detested prodigy ! 
Even thus beneath the deep Titanian prisons 
I trample thee ! thou lingerest 1 

Mercy! mercy! 
No pity, no release, no respite ! Oh, 

That thou wouldst make mine enemy my judge, 65 

Even where he hangs, seared by my long revenge. 
On Caucasus ! he would not doom me thus. 
Gentle, and just, and dreadless, is he not 
The monarch of the world .? What then art thou t 
No refuge! no appeal! 

Sink with me then, 70 

We two will sink on the wide waves of ruin, 
Even as a vulture and a snake outspent 
Drop, twisted in inextricable fight, 
Into a shoreless sea. Let hell unlock 

Its mounded oceans of tempestuous fire, 75 

And whelm on them into the bottomless void 
This desolated world, and thee, and me. 
The conqueror and the conquered, and the wreck 
Of that for which they combated. 

Ai! Ai! 
The elements obey me not. I sink 80 

Dizzily down, ever, for ever, down. 
And, like a cloud, mine enemy above 
Darkens my fall with victory ! Ai, Ai ! 



I20 SELECTED POEMS. 

Scene II. The Mouth of a great River in the Island Atlantis. 
Ocean is discovered reclining near the Shore ; Apollo stands 
beside him. 

Ocean. 
He fell, thou sayest, beneath his conqueror's frown ? 

Apollo. 

Aye, when the strife was ended which made dim 

The orb I rule, and shook the solid stars, 

The terrors of his eye illumined heaven 

With sanguine light, through the thick ragged skirts 5 

Of the victorious darkness, as he fell : 

Like the last glare of day's red agony. 

Which, from a rent among the fiery clouds, 

Burns far along the tempest-wrinkled deep. 

Ocean. 
He sunk to the abyss t To the dark void ? lo 

Apollo. 

An eagle so caught in some bursting cloud 

On Caucasus, his thunder-baffled wings 

Entangled in the whirlwind, and his eyes 

Which gazed on the undazzling sun, now blinded 

By the white lightning, while the ponderous hail 15 

Beats on his struggling form, which sinks at length 

Prone, and the aerial ice clings over it. 

Ocean. 

Henceforth the fields of Heaven-reflecting sea 
Which are my realm will heave, unstained with blood. 
Beneath the uplifting winds, like plains of corn 20 

Swayed by the summer air ; my streams will flow 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 121 

Round many-peopled continents, and round 

Fortunate isles ; and from their glassy thrones 

Blue Proteus and his humid nymphs shall mark 

The shadow of fair ships, as mortals see 25 

The floating bark of the light-laden moon 

With that white star, its sightless pilot's crest, 

Borne down the rapid sunset's ebbing sea ; 

Tracking their path no more by blood and groans, 

And desolation, and the mingled voice 3° 

Of slavery and command ; but by the light * 

Of wave-reflected flowers, and floating odours. 

And music soft, and mild, free, gentle voices. 

And sweetest music, such as spirits love. 

Apollo. 

And I shall gaze not on the deeds which make 35 

My mind obscure with sorrow, as eclipse 
Darkens the sphere I guide ; but list, I hear 
The small, clear, silver lute of the young Spirit 
That sits i' the morning star. 

Ocean. 

Thou must away; 
Thy steeds will pause at even, till when farewell : 4° 

The loud deep calls me home even now to feed it 
With azure calm out of the emerald urns 
Which stand for ever full beside my throne. 
Behold the Nereids under the green sea. 
Their wavering limbs, borne on the wind-like stream, 45 

Their white arms lifted o'er their streaming hair 
With garlands pied and starry sea-flower crowns. 
Hastening to grace their mighty sister's joy. 

(^ sound of waves is heard.) 



122 SELECTED POEMS. 

It is the iinpastured sea hungering for calm. 
Peace, monster ; I come now. Farewell. 



Apollo. 

Farewell. 5° 



Scene III. Caucasus. Prometheus, Hercules, Ione, the Earth, 
Spirits, Asia, aiid Panthea, borne in the Car with the Spirit 
OF the Hour. 

Hercules unbinds Prometheus, who descends. 
Hercules. 

Most glorious among spirits, thus doth strength 
To wisdom, courage, and long-suffering love, 
And thee, who art the form they animate, 
Minister like a slave. 

Prometheus. 

Thy gentle words 
Are sweeter even than freedom long desired 5 

And long delayed. 

Asia, thou light of life. 
Shadow of beauty unbeheld : and ye. 
Fair sister nymphs, who made long years of pain 
Sweet to remember, through your love and care : 
Henceforth we will not part. There is a cave, lo 

All overgrown with trailing odorous plants. 
Which curtain out the day with leaves and flowers, 
And paved with veined emerald, and a fountain 
Leaps in the midst with an awakening sound. 
From its curved roof the mountain's frozen tears iS 

Like snow, or silver, or long diamond spires. 
Hang downward, raining forth a doubtful light : 
And there is heard the ever-moving air, 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 123 



20 



Whispering without from tree to tree, and birds, 

And bees ; and all around are mossy seats, 

And the rough walls are clothed with long soft grass ; 

A simple dwelling, which shall be our own ; 

Where we will sit and talk of time and change, 

As the world ebbs and flows, ourselves unchanged. 

What can hide man from mutability? 25 

And if ye sigh, then I will smile ; and thou, 

lone, shall chaunt fragments of sea-music. 

Until I weep, when ye shall smile away 

The tears she brought, which yet were sweet to shed. 

We will entangle buds and flowers and beams 3° 

Which twinkle on the fountain's brim, and make 

Strange combinations out of common things. 

Like human babes in their brief innocence ; 

And we will search, with looks and words of love, 

For hidden thoughts, each lovelier than the last, 35 

Our unexhausted spirits ; and like lutes 

Touched by the skill of the enamoured wind. 

Weave harmonies divine, yet ever new. 

From difference sweet where discord cannot be ; 

And hither come, sped on the charmed winds, 4o 

Which meet from all the points of heaven, as bees 

From every flower aerial Enna feeds. 

At their known island-homes in Himera, 

The echoes of the human world, which tell 

Of the low voice of love, almost unheard, 45 

And dove-eyed pity's murmured pain, and music. 

Itself the echo of the heart, and all 

That tempers or improves man's life, now free ; 

And lovely apparitions, dim at first. 

Then radiant, as the mind, arising bright 

From the embrace of beauty, whence the forms 

Of which these are the phantoms, casts on them 



50 



124 SELECTED POEMS. 

The gathered rays which are reaUty, 

Shall visit us, the progeny immortal 

Of Painting, Sculpture, and rapt Poesy, 55 

And arts, though unimagined, yet to be. 

The wandering voices and the shadows these 

Of all that man becomes, the mediators 

Of that best worship love, by him and us 

Given and returned; swift shapes and sounds, which grow 60 

More fair and soft as man grows wise and kind, 

And veil by veil, evil and error fall : 

Such virtue has the cave and place around. 

{Turning to the ':iv\v.n: of the Hour.) 

For thee, fair Spirit, one toil remains. lone, 

Give her that curved shell, which Proteus old 65 

Made Asia's nuptial boon, breathing within it 

A voice to be accomplished, and which thou 

Didst hide in grass under the hollow rock. 

lONE. 

Thou most desired Hour, more loved and lovely 

Than all thy sisters, this is the mystic shell ; 7° 

See the pale azure fading into silver 

Lining it with a soft yet glowing light : 

Looks it not like lulled music sleeping there ? 

Spirit. 

It seems in truth the fairest shell of Ocean : 

Its sound must be at once both sweet and strange. 75 

Prometheus. 

Go, borne over the cities of mankind 
On whirlwind-footed coursers: once again 
Outspeed the sun around the orbed world ; 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND, 125 

And as thy chariot cleaves the kindUng ah", 

Thou breathe into the many-folded shell, 80 

Loosening its mighty music; it shall be 

As thunder mingled with clear echoes: then 

Return ; and thou shalt dwell beside our cave. 

And thou, O, Mother Earth! — 

The Earth. 

I hear, I feel ; 
Thy lips are on me, and thy touch runs down 85 

Even to the adamantine central gloom 
Along these marble nerves ; 'tis life, 'tis joy, 
And through my withered, old, and icy frame 
The warmth of an immortal youth shoots down 
Circling. Henceforth the many children fair 9° 

Folded in my sustaining arms ; all plants. 
And creeping forms, and insects rainbow-winged. 
And birds, and beasts, and fish, and human shapes. 
Which drew disease and pain from my wan bosom. 
Draining the poison of despair, shall take 95 

And interchange sweet nutriment; to me 
Shall they become like sister-antelopes 
By one fair dam, snow-white and swift as wind. 
Nursed among lilies near a brimming stream. 
The dew-mists of my sunless sleep shall float 100 

Under the stars like balm : night-folded flowers 
Shall suck unwithering hues in their repose : 
And men and beasts in happy dreams shall gather 
Strength for the coming day, and all its joy : 
And death shall be the last embrace of her 105 

Who takes the life she gave, even as a mother 
Folding her child, says, " Leave me not again." 



126 SELECTED POEMS. 

Asia. 

Oh, mother ! wherefore speak the name of death ? 
Cease they to love, and move, and breathe, and speak, 
Who die ? 

The Earth. 

It would avail not to reply: "o 

Thou art immortal, and this tongue is known 
But to the uncommunicating dead. 
Death is the veil which those who live call life : 
They sleep, and it is lifted : and meanwhile 
In mild variety the seasons mild "5 

With rainbow-skirted showers, and odorous winds. 
And long blue meteors cleansing the dull night, 
And the life-kindling shafts of the keen sun's 
All-piercing bow, and the dew-mingled rain 
Of the calm moonbeams, a soft influence mild, 120 

Shall clothe the forests and the fields, aye, even 
The crag-built deserts of the barren deep, 
With ever-living leaves, and fruits, and flowers. 
And thou ! There is a cavern where my spirit 
Was panted forth in anguish whilst thy pain 125 

Made my heart mad, and those who did inhale it 
Became mad too, and built a temple there. 
And spoke, and were oracular, and lured 
The erring nations round to mutual war. 
And faithless faith, such as Jove kept with thee ; 130 

Which breath now rises, as amongst tall weeds 
A violet's exhalation, and it fills 
With a serener light and crimson air 
Intense, yet soft, the rocks and woods around ; 
It feeds the quick growth of the serpent vine, ^35 

And the dark linked ivy tangling wild. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 127 

And budding, blown, or odour-faded blooms 

Which star the winds with points of coloured light, 

As they rain through them, and bright golden globes 

Of fruit, suspended in their own green heaven, 140 

And through their veined leaves and amber stems 

The flowers whose purple and translucid bowls 

Stand ever mantling with aerial dew, 

The drink of spirits: and it circles round. 

Like the soft waving wings of noonday dreams, 145 

Inspiring calm and happy thoughts, like mine. 

Now thou art thus restored. This cave is thine. 

Arise ! Appear ! 

i^A Spirit rises in the likeness of a winged child.) 

This is my torch-bearer ; 
Who let his lamp out in old time with gazing 
On eyes from which he kindled it anew 15° 

With love, which is as fire, sweet daughter mine. 
For such is that within thine own. Run, wayward. 
And guide this company beyond the peak 
Of Bacchic Nysa, Maenad-haunted mountain. 
And beyond Indus and its tribute rivers, ^55 

Trampling the torrent streams and glassy lakes 
With feet unwet, unwearied, undelaying, 
And up the green ravine, across the vale, 
Beside the windless and crystalline pool, 
Where ever lies, on unerasing waves, 16° 

The image of a temple, built above, 
Distinct with column, arch, and architrave, 
And palm-like capital, and over- wrought. 
And populous most with living imagery, 
Praxitelean shapes, whose marble smiles 165 

Fill the hushed air with everlasting love. 
It is deserted now, but once it bore 



128 SELECTED POEMS. 

Thy name, Prometheus; there the emulous youths 

Bore to thy honour through the divine gloom 

The lamp which was thine emblem ; even as those 170 

Who bear the untransmitted torch of hope 

Into the grave, across the night of life. 

As thou hast borne it most triumphantly 

To this far goal of Time. Depart, farewell. 

Beside that temple is the destined cave. 17 5 



Scene IV. A Forest. In the hackgroiind a Cave. Prometheus, 
Asia, Panthea, Ione, and the Spirit of the Earth. 

lONE. 

Sister, it is not earthly: how it glides 

Under the leaves! how on its head there burns 

A light, like a green star, whose emerald beams 

Are twined with its fair hair ! how, as it moves. 

The splendour drops in flakes upon the grass ! 5 

Knowest thou it ? 

Panthea. 

It is the delicate spirit 
That guides the earth through heaven. From afar 
The populous constellations call that light 
The loveliest of the planets ; and sometimes 
It floats along the spray of the salt sea, lo 

Or makes its chariot of a foggy cloud. 
Or walks through fields or cities while men sleep. 
Or o'er the mountain tops, or down the rivers, 
Or through the green waste wilderness, as now, 
Wondering at all it sees. Before Jove reigned 15 

It loved our sister Asia, and it came 
Each leisure hour to drink the liquid light 
Out of her eyes, for which it said it thirsted 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 129 

As one bit by a dipsas, and with her 

It made its childish confidence, and told her 20 

All it had known or seen, for it saw much, 

Yet idly reasoned what it saw ; and called her, — 

For whence it sprung it knew not, nor do I, — 

" Mother, dear mother." 

The Spirit of the Earth {running to h^i a). 
Mother, dearest mother ; 
May I then talk with thee as I was wont? 25 

May I then hide my eyes in thy soft arms, 
After thy looks have made them tired of joy? 
May I then play beside thee the long noons, 
When work is none in the bright silent air? 

Asia. 

I love thee, gentlest being, and henceforth 3° 

Can cherish thee unenvied : speak, I pray : 
Thy simple talk once solaced, now delights. 

Spirit of the Earth. 

Mother, I am grown wiser, though a child 

Cannot be wise like thee, within this day ; 

And happier too ; happier and wiser both. 35 

Thou knowest that toads, and snakes, and loathly worms. 

And venomous and malicious beasts, and boughs 

That bore ill berries in the woods, were ever 

An hindrance to my walks o'er the green world : 

And that, among the haunts of humankind, 4o 

Hard-featured men, or with proud, angry looks. 

Or cold, staid gait, or false and hollow smiles. 

Or the dull sneer of self-loved ignorance. 

Or other such foul masks, with which ill thoughts 



130 SELECTED POEMS. 

Hide that fair being whom we spirits call man ; 45 

And women too, ugliest of all things evil, 

(Though fair, even in a world where thou art fair, 

When good and kind, free and sincere like thee,) 

When false or frowning made me sick at heart 

To pass them, though they slept, and I unseen. 5° 

Well, my path lately lay through a great city 

Into the woody hills surrounding it : 

A sentinel was sleeping at the gate : 

When there was heard a sound, so loud, it shook 

The towers amid the moonlight, yet more sweet 55 

Than any voice but thine, sweetest of all ; 

A long, long sound, as it would never end : 

And all the inhabitants leapt suddenly 

Out of their rest, and gathered in the streets, 

Looking in wonder up to Heaven, while yet 60 

The music pealed along. I hid myself 

Within a fountain in the public square. 

Where I lay like the reflex of the moon 

Seen in a wave under green leaves ; and soon 

Those ugly human shapes and visages 65 

Of which I spoke as having wrought me pain. 

Passed floating through the air, and fading still 

Into the winds that scattered them ; and those 

From whoVn they passed seemed mild and lovely forms 

After some foul disguise had fallen, and all 70 

Were somewhat changed, and after brief surprise 

And greetings of delighted wonder, all 

Went to their sleep again : and when the dawn 

Came, wouldst thou think that toads, and snakes, and 

efts. 
Could e'er be beautiful ? yet so they were, 7.5 

And that with little change of shape or hue : 
All things had put their evil nature off: 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 13 1 

I cannot tell my joy, when o'er a lake 

Upon a drooping bough with night-shade twined, 

I saw two azure halcyons clinging downward 80 

And thinning one bright bunch of amber berries. 

With quick long beaks, and in the deep there lay 

Those loyely forms imaged as in a sky ; 

So with my thoughts full of these happy changes, 

We meet again, the happiest change of all. 85 

Asia. 

And never will we part, till thy chaste sister 
Who guides the frozen and inconstant moon 
Will look on thy more warm and equal light 
Till her heart thaw like flakes of April snow 
And love thee. 

Spirit of the Earth. 

What; as Asia loves Prometheus? 90 

Asia. 

Peace, wanton, thou art yet not old enough. 
Think ye by gazing on each other's eyes 
To multiply your lovely selves, and fill 
With sphered fires the interlunar air? 

Spirit of the Earth. 

Nay, mother, while my sister trims her lamp 95 

'Tis hard I should go darkling. 

Asia. 

Listen ; look ! 
The Spirit of the Hour enters. 

Prometheus. 
We feel what thou hast heard and seen : yet speak. 



132 SELECTED POEMS. 

Spirit of the Hour. 

Soon as the sound had ceased whose thunder filled 

The abysses of the sky and the wide earth, 

There was a change : the impalpable thin air loo 

And the all-circling sunlight were transformed, 

As if the sense of love dissolved in them 

Had folded itself round the sphered world. 

My vision then grew clear, and I could see 

Into the mysteries of the universe : 105 

Dizzy as with delight I floated down, 

Winnowing the lightsome air with languid plumes, 

My coursers sought their birth-place in the sun. 

Where they henceforth will live exempt from toil 

Pasturing flowers of vegetable fire, "o 

And where my moonlike car will stand within 

A temple, gazed upon by Phidian forms 

Of thee, and Asia, and the Earth, and me, 

And you fair nymphs looking the love we feel ; 

In memory of the tidings it has borne ; "5 

Beneath a dome fretted with graven flowers, 

Poised on twelve columns of resplendent stone, 

And open to the bright and liquid sky. 

Yoked to it by an amphisbenic snake 

The likeness of those winged steeds will mock 120 

The flight from which they find repose. Alas, 

Whither has wandered now my partial tongue 

When all remains untold which ye would hear? 

As I have said, I floated to the earth : 

It was, as it is still, the pain of bliss 125 

To move, to breathe, to be ; I wandering went 

Among the haunts and dwellings of mankind, 

And first was disappointed not to see 

Such mighty change as I had felt within 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 133 

Expressed in outward things ; but soon I looked, 130 

And behold, thrones were kingless, and men walked 

One with the other even as spirits do, 

None fawned, none trampled ; hate, disdain, or fear. 

Self-love or self-contempt, on human brows. 

No more inscribed, as o'er the gate of hell, 135 

" All hope abandon ye who enter here ; " 

None frowned, none trembled, none with eager fear 

Gazed on another's eye of cold command, 

Until the subject of the tyrant's will 

Became, worse fate, the abject of his own, 140 

Which spurred him, like an outspent horse, to death. 

None wrought his lips in truth-entangling lines 

Which smiled the lie his tongue disdained to speak ; 

None, with firm sneer, trod out in his own heart 

The sparks of lov^ and hope till there remained i45 

Those bitter ashes, a soul self-consumed, 

And the wretch crept a vampire among men. 

Infecting all with his own hideous ill ; 

None talked that common, false, cold, hollow talk 

Which makes the heart deny Xh^ yes it breathes, 150 

Yet question that unmeant hypocrisy 

With such a self-mistrust as has no name. 

And women, too, frank, beautiful, and kind 

As the free heaven wdiich rains fresh light and dew 

On the wide earth, passed; gentle radiant forms, 155 

From custom's evil taint exempt and pure ; 

Speaking the wisdom once they could not think, 

Looking emotions once they feared to feel, 

And changed to all which once they dared not be, 

Yet being now, made earth like heaven; nor pride, 160 

Nor jealousy, nor envy, nor ill shame, 

The bitterest of those drops of treasured gall. 

Spoilt the sweet taste of the nepenthe, love. 



134 SELECTED POEMS. 

Thrones, altars, judgment-seats, and prisons ; wherein, 

And beside which, by wretched men were borne 165 

Sceptres, tiaras, swords, and chains, and tomes 

Of reasoned wrong, glozed on by ignorance. 

Were like those monstrous and barbaric shapes-. 

The ghosts of a no more remembered fame. 

Which, from their unworn obelisks, look forth 170 

In triumph o'er the palaces and tombs 

Of those who were their conquerors : mouldering round 

Those imaged to the pride of kings and priests, 

A dark yet mighty faith, a power as wide 

As is the world it wasted, and are now i75 

But an astonishment ; even so the tools 

And emblems of its last captivity, 

Amid the dwellings of the peopled earth. 

Stand, not o'erthrown, but unregarded now. 

And those foul shapes, abhorred by god and man, 180 

Which, under many a name and many a form 

Strange, savage, ghastly, dark and execrable. 

Were Jupiter, the tyrant of the world ; 

And which the nations, panic-stricken, served 

With blood, and hearts broken by long hope, and love 185 

Dragged to his altars soiled and garlandless. 

And slain among men's unreclaiming tears, 

Flattering the thing they feared, which fear was hate. 

Frown, mouldering fast, o'er their abandoned shrines: 

The painted veil, by those who were, called life, 190 

Which mimicked, as with colours idly spread. 

All men believed and hoped, is torn aside ; 

The loathsome mask has fallen, the man remains 

Sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed, but man ; 

Equal, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless, i95 

Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king 

Over himself ; just, gentle, wise : but man ; 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 135 

Passionless ; no, yet free from guilt or pain, 

Which were, for his will made or suffered them, 

Nor yet exempt, though ruling them like slaves, 200 

From chance, and death, and mutability, 

The clogs of that which else might oversoar 

The loftiest star of unascended heaven, 

Pinnacled dim in the intense inane. 

END OF THE THIRD ACT. 



ACT IV. 

Scene, a Part of the Forest near the Cave of Prometheus. Pan- 
THEA and loNE are sleeping: they awaken gradually during 
the first song. 

Voice of unseen Spirits. 

The pale stars are gone ! 
For the sun, their swift shepherd, 
To their folds them compeUing, 
In the depths of the dawn, 
Hastes, in meteor-eclipsing array, and they flee 
Beyond his blue dwelling, 
As fawns flee the leopard. 
But where are ye? 

A Train of dark Forms and Shadows passes by confusedly, singing. 

Here, oh, here : 

We bear the bier 
Of the Father of many a cancelled year ! 

Spectres we 

Of the dead Hours be. 
We bear Time to his tomb in eternity. 



136 SELECTED POEMS. 

Strew, oh, strew 15 

Hair, not yew ! 
Wet the dusty pall with tears, not dew ! 

Be the faded flowers 

Of Death's bare bowers 
Spread on the corpse of the King of Hours ! 20 

Haste, oh, haste ! 

As shades are chased, 
Trembling, by day, from heaven's blue waste. 

We melt away. 

Like dissolving spray, 25 

From the children of a diviner day, 

With the lullaby 

Of winds that die 
On the bosom of their own harmony ! 

lONE. 

What dark forms were they ? 3° 

Panthea. 

The past Hours weak and gray, 
With the spoil which their toil 

Raked together 
From the conquest but One could foil. 

Tone. 
Have they passed ? 

Panthea. 

They have passed ; 35 

They outspeeded the blast, — 
While 't is said, they are fled : 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 137 

lONE. 
Whither, oh, whither? 

Panthea. 
To the dark, to the past, to the dead. 

Voice of unsee^i spirits. 
Bright clouds float in heaven, 40 

Dew-stars gleam on earth, 
Waves assemble on ocean. 
They are gathered and driven 
By the storm of delight, by the panic of glee ! 

They shake with emotion, 45 

They dance in their mirth. 
But where are ye ? 

The pine boughs are singing 
Old songs with new gladness. 

The billows and fountains 50 

Fresh music are flinging, 
Like the notes of a spirit from land and from sea ; 
The storms mock the mountains 
With the thunder of gladness. 

But where are ye? 55 

lONE. 

What charioteers are these ? 

Panthea. 

Where are their chariots ? 

Semichorus of Hours. 
The voice of the Spirits of Air and of Earth 

Have drawn back the figured curtain of sleep 
Which covered our being and darkened our birth 

In the deep. 



138 SELECTED POEMS. 

A Voice. 

In the deep? 

Semichorus II. 

Oh, below the deep. 60 
Semichorus I. 
An hundred ages we had been kept 

Cradled in visions of hate and care, 
And each one who waked as his brother slept, 
Found the truth — 

Semichorus II. 

Worse than his visions were ! 
Semichorus I. 
We have heard the lute of Hope in sleep; 65 

We have known the voice of Love in dreams, , 
We have felt the wand of Power, and leap — 

Semichorus II. 
As the billows leap in the morning beams! 

Chorus. 

Weave the dance on the floor of the breeze, 

Pierce with song heaven's silent light, 7° 

Enchant the day that too swiftly flees, 

To check its flight ere the cave of night. 

Once the hungry Hours were hounds 

Which chased the day like a bleeding deer, 

And it limped and stumbled with many wounds 75 

Through the nightly dells of the desert year. 

But now, oh weave the mystic measure 

Of music, and dance, and shapes of light. 
Let the Hours, and the spirits of might and pleasure. 

Like the clouds and sunbeams, unite. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 139 

A Voice. 

Unite ! 80 

Panthea. 

See, where the Spirits of the human mind 

Wrapped in sweet sounds, as in bright veils, approach. 

Chorus of Spirits. 

We join the throng 

Of the dance and the song. 
By the whirlwind of gladness borne along ; 85 

As the flying-fish leap 

From the Indian deep. 
And mix with the sea-birds, half asleep. 

Chorus of Hours. 

Whence come ye, so wild and so fleet. 

For sandals of lightning are on your feet, 90 

And your wings are soft and swift as thought, 

And your eyes are as love which is veiled not? 

Chorus of Spirits. 

We come from the mind 

Of human kind 
Which was late so dusk, and obscene, and blind; 95 

Now 't is an ocean 

Of clear emotion, 
A heaven of serene and mighty motion. 

From that deep abyss 

Of wonder and bliss, 100 

Whose caverns are crystal palaces ; 

From those skiey towers 

Where Thought's crowned powers 
Sit watching your dance, ye happy Hours ! 



I40 SELECTED POEMS. 

From the dim recesses 105 

Of woven caresses, 
Where lovers catch ye by your loose tresses ; 

From the azure isles, 

Where sweet Wisdom smiles. 
Delaying your ships with her syren wiles. no 

From the temples high 

Of Man's ear and eye, 
Roofed over Sculpture and Poesy ; 

From the murmurings 

Of the unsealed springs 115 

Where Science bedews his Dadal wings. 

Years after years, 

Through blood, and tears. 
And a thick hell of hatreds, and hopes, and fears, 

We waded and flew, 120 

And the islets were few 
Where the bud-blighted flowers of happiness grew. 

Our feet now, every palm. 

Are sandalled with calm. 
And the dew of our wings is a rain of balm ; 125 

And, beyond our eyes. 

The human love lies 
Which makes all it gazes on Paradise. 

Chorus of Spirits and Hours. 

Then weave the web of the mystic measure ; 
From the depths of the sky and the ends of the earth, 130 

Come, swift Spirits of might and of pleasure. 
Fill the dance and the music of mirth. 

As the waves of a thousand streams rush by 

To an ocean of splendour and harmony ! 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 141 

Chorus of Spirits. 

Our spoil is won, '35 

Our task is done, 
We are free to dive, or soar, or run ; 

Beyond and around. 

Or within the bound 
Which clips the world with darkness round. Ho 

We '11 pass the eyes 

Of the starry skies 
Into the hoar deep to colonize : 

Death, Chaos, and Night, 

From the sound of our flight, H5 

Shall flee, like mist from a tempest's might. 

And Earth, Air, and Light, 

And the Spirit of Might, 
Which drives round the stars in their fiery flight ; 

And Love, Thought, and Breath, 15° 

The powers that quell Death, 
Wherever we soar shall assemble beneath. 

And our singing shall build 

In the void's loose field 
A world for the Spirit of Wisdom to wield ; ^55 

We will take our plan 

From the new world of man. 
And our work shall be called the Promethean. 

Chorus of Hours. 

Break the dance, and scatter the song ; 
Let some depart, and some remain. 

Semichorus I. 
We, beyond heaven, are driven along : 



160 



142 SELECTED POEMS. 

Semichorus II. 
Us the enchantments of earth retain : 

Semichorus I. 

Ceaseless, and rapid, and fierce, and free. 

With the Spirits which build a new earth and sea, 

And a heaven where yet heaven could never be. 165 

Semichorus II. 

Solemn, and slow, and serene, and bright, 
Leading the Day and outspeeding the Night, 
With the powers of a world of perfect light. 

Semichorus I. 

We whirl, singing loud, round the gathering sphere. 

Till the trees, and the beasts, and the clouds appear 170 

From its chaos made calm by love, not fear. 

Semichorus II. 

We encircle the ocean and mountains of earth. 
And the happy forms of its death and birth 
Change to the music of our sweet mirth. 

Chorus of Hours and Spirits. 

Break the dance, and scatter the song, 175 

Let some depart, and some remain. 
Wherever we fly we lead along 
In leashes, like starbeams, soft yet strong. 

The clouds that are heavy with love's sweet rain. 

Panthea. 
Ha ! they are gone ! 

Ione. 

Yet feel you no delight i8o 

From the past sweetness ? 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 143 

Panthea. 

As the bare green hill 
When some soft cloud vanishes into rain, 
Laughs with a thousand drops of sunny water 
To the unpavilioned sky ! 

lONE. 

Even whilst we speak 
New notes arise. What is that awful sound? 185 

Panthea. 

'Tis the deep music of the rolling world 
Kindling within the strings of the waved air, 
^olian modulations. 

lONE. 

Listen too, 
How every pause is filled with under-notes. 
Clear, silver, icy, keen awakening tones, 190 

Which pierce the sense, and live within the soul, 
As the sharp stars pierce winter's crystal air 
And gaze upon themselves within the sea. 

Panthea. 

But see where through two openings in the forest 

Which hanging branches overcanopy, 195 

And where two runnels of a rivulet. 

Between the close moss violet-inwoven, 

Have made their path of melody, like sisters 

Who part with sighs that they may meet in smiles, 

Turning their dear disunion to an isle 200 

Of lovely grief, a wood of sweet sad thoughts ; 

Two visions of strange radiance float upon 

The ocean-like enchantment of strong sound, 



144 SELECTED POEMS. 

Which flows intenser, keener, deeper yet 

Under the ground and through the windless air. 205 

lONE. 

I see a chariot like that thinnest boat, 

In which the mother of the months is borne 

By ebbing night into her western cave. 

When she upsprings from interlunar dreams, 

O'er which is curved an orblike canopy 210 

Of gentle darkness, and the hills and woods 

Distinctly seen through that dusk airy veil. 

Regard like shapes in an enchanter's glass ; 

Its wheels are solid clouds, azure and gold, 

Such as the genii of the thunder-storm 215 

Pile on the floor of the illumined sea 

When the sun rushes under it; they roll 

And move and grow as with an inward wind ; 

Within it sits a winged infant, white 

Its countenance, like the whiteness of bright snow, 220 

Its plumes are as feathers of sunny frost. 

Its limbs gleam white, through the wind-flowing folds 

Of its white robe, woof of a^therial pearl. 

Its hair is white, the brightness of white light 

Scattered in strings ; yet its two eyes are heavens 225 

Of liquid darkness, which the Deity 

Within seems pouring, as a storm is poured 

From jagged clouds, out of their arrowy lashes, 

Tempering the cold and radiant air around, 

With fire that is not brightness ; in its hand 230 

It sways a quivering moon-beam, from whose point 

A guiding power directs the chariot's prow 

Over its wheeled clouds, which as they roll 

Over the grass, and flowers, and waves, wake sounds, 

Sweet as a singing rain of silver dew. 235 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 145 



Panthea. 



And from the other opening in the wood 

Rushes, with loud and whirlwind harmony, 

A sphere, which is as many thousand spheres, 

Solid as crystal, yet through all its mass 

Flow, as through empty space, music and light : 240 

Ten thousand orbs involving and involved. 

Purple and azure, white, and green, and golden. 

Sphere within sphere ; and every space between 

Peopled with unimaginable shapes, 

Such as ghosts dream dwell in the lampless deep, 245 

Yet each inter-transpicuous, and they whirl 

Over each other with a thousand motions. 

Upon a thousand sightless axles spinning, 

And with the force of self-destroying swiftness, 

Intensely, slowly, solemnly roll on, 250 

Kindling with mingled sounds, and many tones, 

Intelligible words and music wild. 

With mighty whirl the multitudinous orb 

Grinds the bright brook into an azure mist 

Of elemental subtlety, like light ; 255 

And the wild odour of the forest flowers, 

The music of the living grass and air. 

The emerald light of leaf-entangled beams 

Round its intense yet self-conflicting speed. 

Seem kneaded into one aerial mass 260 

Which drowns the sense. Within the orb itself. 

Pillowed upon its alabaster arms, 

Like to a child o'erwearied with sweet toil, 

On its own folded wings, and wavy hair. 

The Spirit of the Earth is laid asleep, 265 

And you can see its little lips are moving. 

Amid the changing light of their own smiles, 

Like one who talks of what he loves in dream. 



146 SELECTED POEMS. 

lONE. 
'Tis only mocking the orb's harmony. 

Panthea. 

And from a star upon its forehead, shoot, 270 

Like swords of azure fire, or golden spears 

With tyrant-quelling myrtle overtwined, 

Embleming heaven and earth united now, 

Vast beams like spokes of some invisible wheel 

Which whirl as the orb whirls, swifter than thought, 275 

Filling the abyss with sun-like lightnings. 

And perpendicular now, and now transverse, 

Pierce the dark soil, and as they pierce and pass, 

Make bare the secrets of the earth's deep heart ; 

Infinite mine of adamant and gold, 280 

Valueless stones, and unimagined gems. 

And caverns on crystalline columns poised 

With vegetable silver overspread ; 

Wells of unfathomed fire, and water springs 

Whence the great sea, even as a child is fed, 285 

Whose vapours clothe earth's monarch mountain-tops 

With kingly, ermine snow. The beams flash on 

And make appear the melancholy ruins 

Of cancelled cycles ; anchors, beaks of ships ; 

Planks turned to marble ; quivers, helms, and spears, 290 

And gorgon-headed targes, and the wheels 

Of scythed chariots, and the emblazonry 

Of trophies, standards, and armorial beasts, 

Round which death laughed, sepulchred emblems 

Of dead destruction, ruin within ruin ! 295 

The wrecks beside of many a city vast, 

Whose population which the earth grew over 

Was mortal, but not human; see, they lie, 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 147 

Their monstrous works, and uncouth skeletons, 

Their statues, homes and fanes ; prodigious shapes 300 

Huddled in gray annihilation, split, 

Jammed in the hard, black deep ; and over these, 

The anatomies of unknown winged things, 

And fishes which were isles of living scale, 

And serpents, bony chains, twisted around 305 

The iron crags, or within heaps of dust 

To which the tortuous strength of their last pangs 

Had crushed the iron crags; and over these 

The jagged alligator, and the might 

Of earth-convulsing behemoth, which once 310 

Were monarch beasts, and on the slimy shores, 

And weed-overgrown continents of earth, 

Increased and multiplied like summer worms 

On an abandoned corpse, till the blue globe 

Wrapped deluge round it like a cloke, and they 315 

Yelled, gasped, and were abolished ; or some God 

.Whose throne was in a comet, passed, and cried 

Be not ! And like my words they were no more. 

The Earth. 

The joy, the triumph, the delight, the madness ! 

The boundless, overflowing, bursting gladness, 320 

The vapourous exultation not to be confined ! 

Ha ! ha ! the animation of delight 

Which wraps me, like an atmosphere of light. 
And bears me as a cloud is borne by its own wind. 

The Moon. 

Brother mine, calm wanderer, 325 

Happy globe of land and air, 
Some Spirit is darted like a beam from thee, 
Which penetrates my frozen frame. 



148 SELECTED POEMS. 

And passes with the warmth of flame, 
With love, and odour, and deep melody 33° 

Through me, through me ! 

The Earth. 

Ha ! Ha ! the caverns of my hollow mountains. 
My cloven fire-crags, sound-exulting fountains 

Laugh with a vast and inextinguishable laughter. 

The oceans, and the deserts, and the abysses, 335 

And the deep air's unmeasured wildernesses, 

Answer from all their clouds and billows, echoing after. 

They cry aloud as I do. Sceptred curse. 
Who all our green and azure universe 
Threatenedst to muffle round with black destruction, 

sending 34o 

A solid cloud to rain hot thunder-stones, 
And splinter and knead down my children's bones, 
All I bring forth, to one void mass battering and 
blending : 

Until each crag-like tower, and storied column. 
Palace, and obelisk, and temple solemn, 34 5 

My imperial mountains crowned with cloud, and snow, 
and fire ; 
My sea-like forests, every blade and blossom 
Which finds a grave or cradle in my bosom, 

Were stamped by thy strong hate into a lifeless mire. 

How art thou sunk, withdrawn, covered, drunk up 35° 

By thirsty nothing, as the brackish cup 
Drained by a desert-troop, a little drop for all ; 

And from beneath, around, within, above, 

Filling thy void annihilation, love 
Burst in like light on caves cloven by the thunder-ball. 355 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 149 



The Moon. 



The snow upon my lifeless mountains 

Is loosened into living fountains, 
My solid oceans flow, and sing, and shine : 

A spirit from my heart bursts forth. 

It clothes with unexpected birth 360 

My cold bare bosom : Oh ! it must be thine 
On mine, on piine! 

Gazing on thee I feel, I know 

Green stalks burst forth, and bright flowers grow, 
And living shapes upon my bosom move : 365 

Music is in the sea and air, 

Winged clouds soar here and there. 
Dark with the rain new buds are dreaming of : 
'T is love, all love ! 

The Earth. 

It interpenetrates my granite mass, yio 

Through tangled roots and trodden clay doth pass, 
Into the utmost leaves and delicatest flowers ; 

Upon the winds, among the clouds 'tis spread, 

It wakes a life in the forgotten dead. 
They breathe a spirit up from their obscurest bowers. 375 

And like a storm bursting its cloudy prison 
With thunder, and with whirlwind, has arisen 
Out of the lampless caves of unimagined being : 

With earthquake shock and swiftness making 

shiver 
Thought's stagnant chaos, unremoved for ever, 380 

Till hate, and fear, and pain, light-vanquished shadows, 
fleeing. 



150 SELECTED POEMS. 

Leave Man, who was a many-sided mirror, 
Which could distort to many a shape of error. 

This true fair world of things, a sea reflecting love ; 

Which over all his kind as the sun's heaven 3^5 

Gliding o'er ocean, smooth, serene, and even 

Darting from starry depths radiance and life, doth 
move. 

Leave Man, even as a leprous child is left, 
Who follows a sick beast to some warm cleft 

Of rocks, through which the might of healing springs is 

poured ; 39° 

Then when it wanders home with rosy smile. 
Unconscious, and its mother fears awhile 

It is a spirit, then, weeps on her child restored. 

Man, oh, not men ! a chain of linked thought. 

Of love and might to be divided not, 395 

Compelling the elements with adamantine stress ; 

As the sun rules, even with a tyrant's gaze, 

The unquiet republic of the maze 
Of planets, struggling fierce towards heaven's free wil- 
derness. 

Man, one harmonious soul of many a soul, 400 

Whose nature is its own divine control. 
Where all things flow to all, as rivers to the sea ; 

Familiar acts are beautiful through love ; 

Labour, and pain, and grief, in life's green grove 
Sport like tame beasts, — none knew how gentle they 

could be ! 405 

His will, with all mean passions, bad delights, 
And selfish cares, its trembling satellites, 
A spirit ill to guide, but mighty to obey, 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 151 

Is as a tempest-winged ship, whose helm 
Love rules, through waves which dare not over- 
whelm, 410 
Forcing life's wildest shores to own its sovereign sway. 

All things confess his strength. Through the cold 

mass 
Of marble and of colour his dreams pass; 
Bright threads whence mothers weave the robes their 
children wear ; 
Language is a perpetual Orphic song, 415 

Which rules with Daedal harmony a throng 
Of thoughts and forms, which else senseless and shape- 
less were. 

The lightning is his slave ; heaven's utmost deep 
Gives up her stars, and like a flock of sheep 
They pass before his eye, are numbered, and roll on ! 420 
The tempest is his steed, he strides the air; 
And the abyss shouts from her depth laid bare, 
Heaven, hast thou secrets.? Man unveils me; I have 
none. 

The Moon. 

The shadow of white death has passed 

From my path in heaven at last, 425 

A clinging shroud of solid frost and sleep; 

And through my newly-woven bowers, 

Wander happy paramours. 
Less mighty, but as mild as those who keep 

Thy vales more deep. 43° 

The Earth. 

As the dissolving warmth of dawn may fold 
A half unfrozen dew-globe, green, and gold, 



152 SELECTED POEMS. 

And crystalline, till it becomes a winged mist, 
And wanders up the vault of the blue day, 
Outlives the noon, and on the sun's last ray 435 

Hangs o'er the sea, a fleece of fire and amethyst. 

The Moon. 

Thou art folded, thou art lying 

In the light which is undying 
Of thine own joy, and heaven's smile divine ; 

All suns and constellations shower 44° 

On thee a light, a life, a power 
Which doth array thy sphere ; thou pourest thine 
On mine, on mine! 

The Earth. 

I spin beneath my pyramid of night, 
Which points into the heavens dreaming delight, 445 
Murmuring victorious joy in my enchanted sleep ; 
As a youth lulled in love-dreams faintly sighing. 
Under the shadow of his beauty lying. 
Which round his rest a watch of light and warmth 
doth keep. 

The Moon. 

As in the soft and sweet eclipse, 45° 

When soul meets soul on lovers' lips. 
High hearts are calm, and brightest eyes are dull ; 

So when thy shadow falls on me. 

Then am I mute and still, by thee 
Covered ; of thy love. Orb most beautiful, 455 

Full, oh, too full ! 

Thou art speeding round the sun 
Brightest world of many a one ; 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 153 

Green and azure sphere which shinest 

With a light which is divinest 460 

Among all the lamps of Heaven 

To whom life and light is given ; 

I, thy crystal paramour 

Borne beside thee by a power 

Like the polar Paradise, 465 

Magnet-like of lovers' eyes; 

I, a most enamoured maiden 

Whose weak brain is overladen 

With the pleasure of her love, 

Maniac-like around thee move 47° 

Gazing, an insatiate bride, 

On thy form from every side 

Like a Maenad, round the cup 

Which Agave lifted up 

In the weird Cadmaean forest. 475 

Brother, wheresoe'er thou soarest 

I must hurry, whirl and follow 

Through the heavens wide and hollow, 

Sheltered by the warm embrace 

Of thy soul from hungry space, 480 

Drinking from thy sense and sight 

Beauty, majesty, and might, 

As a lover or a chameleon 

Grows like what it looks upon. 

As a violet's gentle eye 485 

Gazes on the azure sky 
Until its hue grows like what it beholds, 

As a gray and watery mist 

Glows like solid amethyst 
Athwart the western mountain it enfolds, 49° 

When the sunset sleeps 
Upon its snow. 



54 SELECTED POEMS. 



The Earth. 

And the weak day weeps 
That it should be so. 

Oh, gentle Moon, the voice of thy delight 495 

Falls on me like thy clear and tender light 
Soothing the seaman, borne the summer night, 

Through isles for ever calm ; 
Oh, gentle Moon, thy crystal accents pierce 
The caverns of my pride's deep universe, 5°° 

Charming the tiger joy, whose tramplings fierce 

Made wounds which need thy balm. 

Panthea. 

I rise as from a bath of sparkling water, 
A bath of azure light, among dark rocks, 
Out of the stream of sound. 

lONE. 

Ah me ! sweet sister, 505 

The stream of sound has ebbed away from us. 
And you pretend to rise out of its wave. 
Because your words fall like the clear, soft dew 
Shaken from a bathing wood-nymph's limbs and hair. 

Panthea. 

Peace! peace! A mighty Power, which is as darkness, 510 

Is rising out of Earth, and from the sky 

Is showered like night, and from within the air 

Bursts, like eclipse which had been gathered up 

Into the pores of sunlight : the bright visions. 

Wherein the singing spirits rode and shone, 5^5 

Gleam like pale meteors through a watery night. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 155 

lONE. 
There is a sense of words upon mine ear. 

Panthea. 
An universal sound like words: Oh, list! 

Demogorgon. 

Thou, Earth, calm empire of a happy soul. 

Sphere of divinest shapes and harmonies, 520 

Beautiful orb! gathering as thou dost roll 

The love which paves thy path along the skies : 

The Earth. 
I hear : I am as a drop of dew that dies. 

Demogorgon. 

Thou, Moon, which gazest on the nightly Earth 

With wonder, as it gazes upon thee ; 525 

Whilst each to men, and beasts, and the swift birth 
Of birds, is beauty, love, calm, harmony: 

The Moon. 
I hear: I am a leaf shaken by thee! 

Demogorgon. 

Ye kings of suns and stars. Daemons and Gods, 

^therial Dominations, who possess 530 

Elysian, windless, fortunate abodes 

Beyond Heaven's constellated wilderness : 

A Voice from above. 

Our great Republic hears, we are bless'd, and bless. 



156 SELECTED POEMS. 

Demogorgon. 

Ye happy dead, whom beams of brightest verse 

Are clouds to hide, not colours to portray, 535 

Whether your nature is that universe 
Which once ye saw and suffered — 

A Voice from beneath. 

Or as they 
Whom we have left, we change and pass away. 

Demogorgon. 

Ye elemental Genii, who have homes 

From man's high mind even to the central stone 54° 

Of sullen lead ; from Heaven's star-fretted domes 

To the dull weed some sea-worm battens on : 

A CONFUSED Voice. 
We hear : thy words waken Oblivion. 

Demogorgon. 

Spirits, whose homes are flesh : ye beasts and birds, 

Ye worms, and fish ; ye living leaves and buds ; 545 

Lightning and wind ; and ye untameable herds, 
Meteors and mists, which throng air's solitudes: 

A Voice. 
Thy voice to us is wind among still woods. 

Demogorgon. 

Man, who wert once a despot and a slave ; 

A dupe and a deceiver; a decay; 550 

A traveller from the cradle to the grave 

Through the dim night of this immortal day : 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 157 

All. 
Speak: thy strong words may never pass away. 

Demogorgon. 

This is the day, which down the void abysm 

At the Earth-born's spell yawns for Heaven's despotism, 555 

And Conquest is dragged captive through the deep : 
Love, from its awful throne of patient power 
In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour 

Of dead endurance, from the slippery, steep, 
And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs 5^0 

And folds over the world its healing wings. 

Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance, 
These are the seals of that most firm assurance 

Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength ; 
And if, with infirm hand. Eternity, 5^5 

Mother of many acts and hours, should free 

The serpent that would clasp her with his length ; 
These are the spells by which to re-assume 
An empire o'er the disentangled doom. 

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite ; 57o 

To forgive wrongs darker than death or night ; 

To defy Power, which seems omnipotent ; 
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates 
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates ; 

Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent; 575 

This, like thy glory. Titan, is to be 
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free ; 
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory. 



158 SELECTED POEMS. 



SONNET: ENGLAND IN 1819. 

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, — 

Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow 

Through public scorn, — mud from a muddy spring, — 

Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know, 

But leech-like to their fainting country cling, 

Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow, — 

A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field, — 

An army, which liberticide and prey 

Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield : 

Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay ; 

Religion Christless, Godless — a book sealed ; 

A Senate, — Time's worst statute unrepealed, — 

Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may 

Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day. 

1819. 



SONG TO THE MEN OF ENGLAND, 

I. 

Men of England, wherefore plough 
For the lords who lay ye low? 
Wherefore weave with toil and care 
The rich robes your tyrants wear? 



Wherefore feed, and clothe, and save, 
From the cradle to the grave. 
Those ungrateful drones who would 
Drain your sweat — nay, drink your blood ? 



SONG TO THE MEN OF ENGLAND. 159 



Wherefore, Bees of England, forge 
Many a weapon, chain, and scourge, 
That these stingless drones may spoil 
The forced produce of your toil ? 



Have ye leisure, comfort, calm. 

Shelter, food, love's gentle balm ? 

Or what is it ye buy so dear 15 

With your pain and with your fear? 

V, 

The seed ye sow, another reaps ; 

The wealth ye find, another keeps ; 

The robes ye weave, another wears ; 

The arms ye forge, another bears. 20 

VI. 

Sow seed, — but let no tyrant reap ; 
Find wealth, — let no impostor heap; 
Weave robes, — let not the idle wear ; 
Forge arms, — in your defence to bear. 

VII. 

Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells ; 25 

In halls ye deck another dwells. 

Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see 

The steel ye tempered glance on ye. 

VIII. 

With plough and spade, and hoe and loom, 

Trace your grave, and build your tomb, 30 

And weave your winding-sheet, till fair 

England be your sepulchre. 1819. 



i6o SELECTED POEMS. 



ODE TO THE WEST WIND. 



O, WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's bein^ 
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead 
Are driven, Hke ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, 

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red. 
Pestilence-stricken multitudes : O, thou, 
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed 

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low. 
Each like a corpse within its grave, until 
Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow 

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill 
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) 
With living hues and odours plain and hill : 

Wild Spirit, which art moving every where ; 
Destroyer and preserver ; hear, O, hear ! 



Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, 15 
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed. 
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, 

Angels of rain and lightning : there are spread 

On the blue surface of thine airy surge. 

Like the bright hair uplifted from the head 20 

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge 

Of the horizon to the zenith's height 

The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge 



ODE TO THE WEST WIND. l6l 

Of the dying year, to which this closing night 

Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, 25 

Vaulted with all thy congregated might 

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere 

Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst : O, hear ! 



Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams 

The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, 3° 

Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams. 

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay. 
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers 
Quivering within the wave's intenser day, 

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers 35 

So sweet, the sense faints picturing them ! Thou 
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers 

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below 
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear 
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know 4o 

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear. 
And tremble and despoil themselves : O, hear ! 



If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear ; 

If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee ; 

A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share 45 

The impulse of thy strength, only less free 
Than thou, O, uncontrollable ! If even 
I were as in my boyhood, and could be 



62 SELECTED POEMS. 

The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, 

As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed 5° 

Scarce seemed a vision ; I would ne'er have striven 

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. . 
Oh ! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud ! 
I fall upon the thorns of life ! I bleed ! 

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed 55 

One too like thee : tameless, and swift, and proud. 



Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is : 
What if my leaves are falling like its own ! 
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies 

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, 6o 

Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce, 
My spirit ! Be thou me, impetuous one ! 



Drive my dead thoughts over the universe 

Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth ! 

And, by the incantation of this verse, 65 

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth 
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind ! 
Be through my lips to unawakened earth 

The trumpet of a prophecy ! O, wind, 

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind .^ 7° 

1819. 



THE INDIAN SERENADE. 163 

THE INDIAN SERENADE. 



I ARISE from dreams of thee 
In the first sweet sleep of night, 
When the winds are breathing low, 
And the stars are shining bright : 
I arise from dreams of thee, 
And a spirit in my feet 
Hath led me — who knows how ? 
To thy chamber window. Sweet! 



II. 

The wandering airs they faint 
On the dark, the silent stream — 10 

The Champak odours fail 
Like sweet thoughts in a dream ; 
The nightingale's complaint. 
It dies upon her heart; — 

-As I must on thine, 15 

O ! beloved as thou art ! 



lift me from the grass ! 

1 die ! I faint ! I fail ! 
Let thy love in kisses rain 

On my lips and eyelids pale. 20 

My cheek is cold and white, alas ! 
My heart beats loud and fast ; — 
Oh ! press it to thine own again. 
Where it will break at last. 

1819. 



1 64 SELECTED POEMS. 



SOPHIA. 



Thou art fair, and few are fairer 
Of the Nymphs of earth or ocean ; 

They are robes that fit the wearer — 
Those soft limbs of thine, whose motion 

Ever falls and shifts and glances 

As the life within them dances. 



Thy deep eyes, a double Planet, 

Gaze the wisest into madness 
With soft clear fire, — the winds that fan it 

Are those thoughts of tender gladness lo 

Which, like Zephyrs on the billow. 
Make thy gentle soul their pillow. 

III. 

If whatever face thou paintest 

In those eyes grows pale with pleasure, 

If the fainting soul is faintest 15 

When it hears thy harp's wild measure. 

Wonder not that when thou speakest 

Of the weak my heart is weakest. 



As dew beneath the wind of morning, 
As the sea which Whirlwinds waken, 

As the birds at thunder's warning. 
As aught mute yet deeply shaken, 

As one who feels an unseen spirit 

Is my heart when thine is near it. 

1819. 



LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY. — ODE TO HEAVEN. 165 

LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY. 
I. 

The Fountains mingle with the River 

And the Rivers with the Ocean, 
The winds of Heaven mix for ever 

With a sweet emotion; 
Nothing in the world is single ; 5 

All things by a law divine 
In one spirit meet and mingle. 

Why not I with thine? — 



See the mountains kiss high Heaven 

And the waves clasp one another; 10 

No sister-flower would be forgiven 

If it disdained its brother, 
And tiie sunlight clasps the earth 

And the moonbeams kiss the sea : 

What is all this sweet work worth 15 

If thou kiss not me.^ 

1819. 



ODE TO HEAVEN. 

Chorus of Spirits. 

First Spirit. 

Palace-roof of cloudless nights ! 
Paradise of golden lights ! 

Deep, immeasurable, vast, 
Which art now, and which wert then 

Of the present and the past, 



1 66 SELECTED POEMS. 

Of the eternal where and when, 
Presence-chamber, temple, home, 
Ever-canopying dome. 
Of acts and ages yet to come ! 

Glorious shapes have life in thee, lo 

Earth, and all earth's company ; 

Living globes which ever throng 
Thy deep chasms and wildernesses ; 

And green worlds that glide along ; 
And swift stars with flashing tresses ; 15 

And icy moons most cold and bright, 

And mighty suns beyond the night. 

Atoms of intensest light. 

Even thy name is as a god, 

Heaven ! for thou art the abode 20 

Of that power which is the glass 
Wherein man his nature sees. 

Generations as they pass 
Worship thee with bended knees. 

Their unremaining gods and they 25 

Like a river roll away : 

Thou remainest such alway. 

Second Spirit. 

Thou art but the mind's first chamber, 
Round which its young fancies clamber, 

Like weak insects in a cave, 'P 

Lighted up by stalactites ; 

But the portal of the grave, 
Where a world of new delights 

Will make thy best glories seem 

But a dim and noonday gleam 35 

From the shadow of a dream ! 



THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 167 

Third Spirit. 

Peace ! the abyss is wreathed with scorn 
At your presumption, atom-born ! 

What is heaven ? and what are ye 
Who its brief expanse inherit ? 40 

What are suns and spheres which flee 
With the instinct of that spirit 

Of which ye are but a part ? 

Drops which Nature's mighty heart 

Drives through thinnest veins. Depart ! 45 

What is heaven ? a globe of dew, 
Filling in the morning new 

Some eyed flower whose young leaves waken 
On an unimagined world : 

Constellated suns unshaken, 5° 

Orbits measureless, are furled 

In that frail and fading sphere, 

With ten millions gathered there, 

To tremble, gleam, and disappear. 
December, 18 19. 



THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 

PART FIRST. 

A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew. 
And the young winds fed it with silver dew. 
And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light. 
And closed them beneath the kisses of night. 

And the Spring arose on the garden fair. 
Like the Spirit of Love felt every where ; 
And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast 
Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest. 



1 68 SELECTED POEMS. 

But none ever trembled and panted with bliss 
In the garden, the field, or the wilderness, lo 

Like a doe in the noon-tide with love's sweet want, 
As the companionless Sensitive Plant. 

The snow-drop, and then the violet, 

Arose from the ground with warm rain wet, 

And their breath was mixed with fresh odour, sent 15 

From the turf, like the voice and the instrument. 

Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall, 

And narcissi, the fairest among them all. 

Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess, 

Till they die of their own dear loveliness ; 20 

And the Naiad-like lily of the vale. 
Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale. 
That the light of its tremulous bells is seen 
Through their pavilions of tender green ; 

And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue, 25 

Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew 
Of music so delicate, soft, and intense. 
It was felt like an odour within the sense ; 

And the rose like a nymph to the bath addressed, 
Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast, 30 

Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air 
The soul of her beauty and love lay bare : 

And the wand-like lily, which lifted up. 

As a Maenad, its moonlight-coloured cup. 

Till the fiery star, which is its eye, 35 

Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky •, 



THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 169 

And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose, 

The sweetest flower for scent that blows ; 

And all rare blossoms from every clime 

Grew in that garden in perfect prime. 40 

And on the stream whose inconstant bosom 
Was prankt under boughs of embowering blossom. 
With golden and green light, slanting through 
Their heaven of many a tangled hue. 

Broad water lilies lay tremulously, 45 

And starry river-buds glimmered by. 
And around them the soft stream did glide and dance 
With a motion of sweet sound and radiance. 

And the sinuous paths of lawn and of moss. 

Which led through the garden along and across, 50 

Some open at once to the sun and the breeze. 

Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees. 

Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells 

As fair as the fabulous asphodels, 

And flowrets which drooping as day drooped too 55 

Fell into pavilions, white, purple, and blue. 

To roof the glow-worm from the evening dew. 

And from this undefiled Paradise 

The flowers (as an infant's awakening eyes 

Smfle on its mother, whose singing sweet 60 

Can first lull, and at last must awaken it), 

When Heaven's blithe winds had unfolded them. 

As mine-lamps enkindle a hidden gem. 

Shone smiling to Heaven, and every one 

Shared joy in the light of the gentle sun ; 65 



70 SELECTED POEMS. 

For each one was interpenetrated 
With the light and the odour its neighbour shed, 
Like young lovers whom youth and love make dear 
Wrapped and filled by their mutual atmosphere. 

But the Sensitive Plant, which could give small fruit 7° 
Of the love which it felt from the leaf to the root, 
Received more than all, it loved more than ever, 
Where none wanted but it, could belong to the giver : 

For the Sensitive Plant has no bright flower; 
Radiance and odour are not its dower ; 75 

It loves, even like Love ; its deep heart is full ; 
It desires what it has not, the beautiful ! 

The light winds which from unsustaining wings 

Shed the music of many murmurings ; 

The beams which dart from many a star 80 

Of the flowers whose hues they bear afar ; 

The plumed insects swift and free, 

Like golden boats on a sunny sea, 

Laden with light and odour, which pass 

Over the gleam of the living grass ; 85 

The unseen clouds of the dew, which lie 
Like fire in the flowers till the sun rides high. 
Then wander like spirits among the spheres. 
Each cloud faint with the fragrance it bears ; 

The quiyering vapours of dim noontide, 90 

Which like a sea o'er the warm earth glide. 
In which every sound, and odour, and beam, 
Move, as reeds in a single stream ; 



THE SENSITIVE PLANT 171 

Each and all like ministering angels were 

For the Sensitive Plant sweet joy to bear, 95 

Whilst the lagging hours of the day went by 

Like windless clouds o'er a tender sky. 

And when evening descended from heaven above, 

And the Earth was all rest, and the air was all love, 

And delight, though less bright, was far more deep, 100 

And the day's veil fell from the world of sleep. 

And the beasts, and the birds, and the insects were 

drowned 
In an ocean of dreams without a sound; 
Whose waves never mark, though they ever impress 
The light sand which paves it, consciousness ; 105 

(Only overhead the sweet nightingale 

Ever sang more sweet as the day might fail. 

And snatches of its Elysian chant 

Were mixed with the dreams of the Sensitive Plant.) 

The Sensitive Plant was the earliest no 

Up-gathered into the bosom of rest ; 
A sweet child weary of its delight, 
The feeblest and yet the favourite, 
Cradled within the embrace of night. 

PART SECOND. 

There was a Power in this sweet place. 

An Eve in this Eden ; a ruling grace 

Which to the flowers, did they waken or dream, 

Was as God is to the starry scheme. 

A Lady, the wonder of her kind, 5 

Whose form was upborne by a lovely mind 



172 SELECTED POEMS. 

Which, dilating, had moulded her mien and motion 
Like a sea-flower unfolded beneath the ocean, 

Tended the garden from morn to even : 

And the meteors of that sublunar heaven, 10 

Like the lamps of the air when night walks forth, 
Laughed round her footsteps up from the Earth ! 

She had no companion of mortal race, 

But her tremulous breath and her flushing face 

Told, whilst the morn kissed the sleep from her eyes, 15 

That her dreams were less slumber than Paradise : 

As if some bright Spirit for her sweet sake 

Had deserted heaven while the stars were awake, 

As if yet around her he lingering were. 

Though the veil of daylight concealed him from her. 20 

Her step seemed to pity the grass it pressed; 
You might hear by the heaving of her breast, 
That the coming and going of the wind 
Brought pleasure there and left passion behind. 

And wherever her airy footstep trod, 25 

Her trailing hair from the grassy sod 
Erased its light vestige, with shadowy sweep, 
Like a sunny storm o'er the dark green deep. 

I doubt not the flowers of that garden sweet 

Rejoiced in the sound of her gentle feet ; 3° 

I doubt not they felt the spirit that came 

From her glowing fingers through all their frame. 

She sprinkled bright water from the stream 

On those that were faint with the sunny beam ; 

And out of the cups of the heavy flowers 35 

She emptied the rain of the thunder showers. 



THE SENSITIVE PLANT 173 

She lifted their heads with her tender hands, 

And sustained them with rods and ozier bands ; 

If the flowers had been her own infants she 

Could never have nursed them more tenderly. 40 

And all killing insects and gnawing worms, 
And things of obscene and unlovely forms, 
She bore in a basket of Indian woof, 
Into the rough woods far aloof, 

In a basket, of grasses and wild flowers full, 45 

The freshest her gentle hands could pull 
For the poor banished insects, whose intent, 
Although they did ill, was innocent. 

But the bee and the beamlike ephemeris 
Whose path is the lightning's, and soft moths that kiss 50 
The sweet lips of the flowers, and harm not, did she 
Make her attendant angels be. 

And many an antenatal tomb. 

Where butterflies dream of the life to come. 

She left clinging round the smooth and dark 55 

Edge of the odorous cedar bark. 

This fairest creature from earliest spring 

Thus moved through the garden ministering 

All the sweet season of summer tide, 

And ere the first leaf looked brown — she died ! 60 

PART THIRD. 

Three days the flowers of the garden fair 
Like stars when the moon is awakened were. 
Or the waves of Baioe, ere luminous 
She floats up through the smoke of Vesuvius. 



174 SELECTED POEMS. 

And on the fourth, the Sensitive Plant 5 

Felt the sound of the funeral chaunt, 

And the steps of the bearers, heavy and slow, 

And the sobs of the mourners, deep and low ; 

The weary sound and the heavy breath, 

And the silent motions of passing death, lo 

And the smell, cold, oppressive, and dank, 

Sent through the pores of the coffin plank ; 

The dark grass, and the flowers among the grass. 
Were bright with tears as the crowd did pass ; 
From their sighs the wind caught a mournful tone, 15 
And sate in the pines, and gave groan for groan. 

The garden, once fair, became cold and foul, 

Like the corpse of her who had been its soul, 

Which at first was lovely as if in sleep. 

Then slowly changed, till it grew a heap 20 

To make men tremble who never weep. 

Swift summer into the autumn flowed. 

And frost in the mist of morning rode. 

Though the noonday sun looked clear and bright. 

Mocking the spoil of the secret night. 25 

The rose leaves, like flakes of crimson snow, 
Paved the turf and the moss below. 
The lilies were drooping, and white, and wan, 
Like the head and the skin of a dying man. 

And Indian plants, of scent and hue 3° 

The sweetest that ever were fed on dew, 

Leaf by leaf, day after day. 

Were massed into the common clay. 



THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 175 

And the leaves, brown, yellow, and gray, and red, 

And white with the whiteness of what is dead, 35 

Like troops of ghosts on the dry wind passed ; 

Their whistling noise made the birds aghast. 

And the gusty winds waked the winged seeds, 

Out of their birthplace of ugly weeds. 

Till they clung round many a sweet flower's stem, 40 

Which rotted into the earth with them. 

The water-blooms under the rivulet 

Fell from the stalks on which they were set ; 

And the eddies drove them here and there, 

As the winds did those of the upper air. 45 

Then the rain came down, and the broken stalks. 
Were bent and tangled across the walks ; 
And the leafless net-work of parasite bowers 
Massed into ruin ; and all sweet flowers. 

Between the time of the wind and the snow, 50 

All loathliest weeds began to grow, 
Whose coarse leaves were splashed with many a speck, 
Like the water-snake's belly and the toad's back. 

And thistles, and nettles, and darnels rank. 

And the dock, and henbane, and hemlock dank, 55 

Stretched out its long and hollow shank. 

And stifled the air till the dead wind stank. 

And plants, at whose names the verse feels loath, 

Filled the place with a monstrous undergrowth, 

Prickly, and pulpous, and blistering, and blue, 60 

Livid, and starred with a lurid dew. 



76 SELECTED POEMS. 

And agarics, and fungi, with mildew and mould 

Started like mist from the wet ground cold ; 

Pale, fleshy, as if the decaying dead 

With a spirit of growth had been animated ! 65 

Their moss rotted off them, flake by flake. 
Till the thick stalk stuck like a murderer's stake, 
Where rags of loose flesh yet tremble on high. 
Infecting the winds that wander by. 

Spawn, weeds, and filth, a leprous scum, 70 

Made the running rivulet thick and dumb 

And at its outlet flags huge as stakes 

Dammed it up with roots knotted like water-snakes. 

And hour by hour, when the air was still. 

The vapours arose which have strength to kill : 75 

At morn they were seen, at noon they were felt, 

At night they were darkness no star could melt. 

And unctuous meteors from spray to spray 

Crept and flitted in broad noon-day 

Unseen ; every branch on which they alit 80 

By a venomous blight was burned and bit. 

The Sensitive Plant like one forbid 

Wept, and the tears within each lid 

Of its folded leaves which together grew 

Were changed to a blight of frozen glue. 85 

For the leaves soon fell, and the branches soon 
By the heavy axe of the blast were hewn ; 
The sap shrank to the root through every pore 
As blood to a heart that will beat no more. 



THE SENSITIVE PLANT 177 

For Winter came: the wind was his whip : 90 

One choppy finger was on his lip : • 

He had torn the cataracts from the hills 
And they clanked at his girdle like manacles ; 

His breath was a chain which without a sound 

The earth, and the air, and the water bound ; 95 

He came, fiercely driven, in his chariot-throne, 

By the tenfold blasts of the arctic zone. 

Then the weeds which were forms of living death 

Fled from the frost to the earth beneath. 

Their decay and sudden flight from frost 100 

Was but like the vanishing of a ghost! 

And under the roots of the Sensitive Plant 
The moles and the dormice died for want: 
The birds dropped stiff from the frozen air 
And were caught in the branches naked and bare. 105 

First there came down a thawing rain 
And its dull drops froze on the boughs again ; 
Then there steamed up a freezing dew 
Which to the drops of the thaw-rain grew ; 

And a northern whirlwind, wandering about no 

Like a wolf that had smelt a dead child out. 
Shook the boughs thus laden, and heavy and stiff, 
And snapped them off with his rigid griff. 

When winter had gone and spring came back 

The Sensitive Plant was a leafless wreck ; 115 

But the mandrakes, and toadstools, and docks, and 

darnels. 
Rose like the dead from their ruined charnels. 



78 SELECTED POEMS. 



Conclusion. 

Whether the Sensitive Plant, or that 
Which within its boughs like a spirit sat 
Ere its outward form had known decay, 
Now felt this change, I cannot say. 

Whether that Lady's gentle mind, 5 

No longer with the form combined 
Which scattered love, as stars do light, 
Found sadness, where it left delight, 

I dare not guess ; but in this life 

Of error, ignorance, and strife, lo 

Where nothing is, but all things seem, 

And we the shadows of the dream, 

It is a modest creed, and yet 

Pleasant if one considers it. 

To own that death itself must be, 15 

Like all the rest, a mockery. 

That garden sweet, that Lady fair, 

And all sweet shapes and odours there. 

In truth have never passed away : 

'Tis we, 'tis ours, are changed; not they. 20 

For love, and beauty, and delight, 
There is no death nor change : their might 
Exceeds our organs, which endure 
No light, being themselves obscure. 

1820. 



THE CLOUD. 179 



THE CLOUD. 

I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, 

From the seas and the streams ; 
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid 

In their noon-day dreams. 
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken 5 

The sweet buds every one, 
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast. 

As she dances about the sun. 
I wield the flail of the lashing hail. 

And whiten the green plains under, 10 

And then again I dissolve it in rain. 

And laugh as I pass in thunder. 

I sift the snow on the mountains below, 

And their great pines groan aghast; 
And all the night 'tis my pillow white, 15 

While I sleep in the arms of the blast. 
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers. 

Lightning my pilot sits ; 
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, — 

It struggles and howls at fits ; 20 

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion. 

This pilot is guiding me. 
Lured by the love of the genii that move 

In the depths of the purple sea ; 
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, 25 

Over the lakes and the plains, 
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, 

The Spirit he loves remains ; 
And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile. 

Whilst he is dissolving in rains. 3° 



i8o SELECTED POEMS. 

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, 

And his burning plumes outspread. 
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, 

When the morning star shines dead. 
As on the jag of a mountain crag, 35 

Which an earthquake rocks and swings, 
An eagle alit one moment may sit 

In the light of its golden wings. 
And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, 

Its ardours of rest and of love, 40 

And the crimson pall of eve may fall 

From the depth of heaven above. 
With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest. 

As still as a brooding dove. 

That orbed maiden with white fire laden, 45 

Whom mortals call the moon. 
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor. 

By the midnight breezes strewn ; 
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, 

Which only the angels hear, 5° 

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof. 

The stars peep behind her and peer ; 
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee. 

Like a swarm of golden bees, 
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, 55 

Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas. 
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high. 

Are each paved with the moon and these. 

I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone, 

And the moon's with a girdle of pearl ; 60 

The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim. 

When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl. 



TO A SKYLARK, i»l 

From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, 

Over a torrent sea, 
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, 65 

The mountains its columns be. 
The triumphal arch through which I march 

With hurricane, fire, and snow, 
When the powers of the air are chained to my chair. 

Is the million-coloured bow ; 70 

The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove. 

While the moist earth was laughing below. 

I am the daughter of earth and water. 

And the nursling of the sky ; 
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores ; 75 

I change, but I cannot die. 
For after the rain when, with never a stain, 

The pavilion of heaven is bare. 
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams 

Build up the blue dome of air, 80 

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph. 

And out of the caverns of rain. 
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the 
tomb. 



I arise and unbuild it again. 



1820. 



TO A SKYLARK. 

Hail to thee, blithe spirit ! 

Bird thou never wert. 
That from heaven, or near it, 

Pourest thy full heart 
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 



1 82 SELECTED POEMS. 

Higher still and higher 

From the earth thou springest 
Like a cloud of fire ; 

The blue deep thou wingest, 
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. lo 

In the golden lightning 

Of the sunken sun, 
O'er which clouds are brightning, 

Thou dost float and run; 
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. 15 

The pale purple even 

Melts around thy flight ; 
Like a star of heaven 

In the broad day-light 
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight, 20 

Keen as are the arrows 

Of that silver sphere. 
Whose intense lamp narrows 

In the white dawn clear, 
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. 25 

All the earth and air 

With thy voice is loud, 
As, when night is bare. 
From one lonely cloud 
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. 30 

What thou art we know not ; 

What is most like thee ? 
From rainbow clouds there flow not 
Drops so bright to see 
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. 35 



TO A SKYLARK. 183 

Like a poet hidden 

In the light of thought, 
Singing hymns unbidden, 

Till the world is wrought 
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not : 4o 

Like a high-born maiden 

In a palace tower, 
Soothing her love-laden 
Soul in secret hour 
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower : 45 

Like a glow-worm golden 

In a dell of dew, 
Scattering unbeholden 

Its aerial hue 
Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view : 5° 

Like a rose embowered 

In its own green leaves, 
By warm winds deflowered, 
Till the scent it gives 
Makes faint with too much 'sweet these heavy-winged 

thieves. 55 

Sound of vernal showers 

On the twinkling grass, 
Rain-awakened flowers. 
All that ever was 
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. 60 

Teach us, sprite or bird, 

What sweet thoughts are thine ; 
I have never heard 

Praise of love or wine 
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine : 65 



184 SELECTED POEMS. 

Chorus Hymenaeal, 

Or triumphal chaunt, 
Matched with thine, would be all 

But an empty vaunt, 
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 70 

What objects are the fountains 

Of thy happy strain ? 
What fields, or waves, or mountains ? 

What shapes of sky or plain ? 
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? 75 

With thy clear keen joyance 

Languor cannot be — 
Shadow of annoyance 

Never came near thee : 
Thou lovest — but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. 80 

Waking or asleep, 

Thou 01 death r^iust deem 
Things more true and deep - ■. 

Than we mortals dream, 
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream ? 85 

We look before and after 

And pine for what is not: 
Our sincerest laughter 

With some pain is fraught; 
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. 90 

Yet if we could scorn 

Hate, and pride, and fear; 
If we were things born 

Not to shed a tear, 
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. 95 



ODE TO LIBERTY, 185 

Better than all measures 

Of delightful sound — 
Better than all treasures 

That in books are found — 
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground ! 100 

Teach me half the gladness 

That thy brain must know, 
Such harmonious madness 
From my lips would flow, 
The world should listen then — as I am listening now. 105 

1820. 



ODE TO LIBERTY. 

Yet, Freedom, yet thy banner torn but flying. 

Streams like a thunder-storm against the wind. 

Byron. 
I. 

A GLORIOUS people vibrated again 

The lightning of the nations : Liberty 
From heart to heart, from tower to tower, o'er Spain, 

Scattering contagious fire into the sky. 
Gleamed. My soul spurned the chains of its dismay, 5 

And, in the rapid plumes of song, 
Clothed itself, sublime and strong ; 
As a young eagle soars the morning clouds among. 
Hovering in verse o'er its accustomed prey ; 

Till from its station in the heaven of fame 10 

The Spirit's whirlwind rapt it, and the ray 
Of the remotest sphere of living flame 
Which paves the void was from behind it flung. 
As foam from a ship's swiftness, when there came 
A voice out of the deep : I will record the same. 15 



1 86 SELECTED POEMS. 

II. 

The Sun and the serenest Moon sprang forth : 
The burning stars of the abyss were hurled 
Into the depths of heaven. The Daidal earth, 

That island in the ocean of the world, 
Hung in its cloud of all-sustaining air: 20 

But this divinest universe 
Was yet a chaos and a curse, 
For thou wert not : but power from worst producing worse, 
The spirit of the beasts was kindled there, 

And of the birds, and of the watery forms, 25 

And there was war among them, and despair 
Within them, raging without truce or terms : 
The bosom of their violated nurse 

Groaned, for beasts warred on beasts, and worms on 

worms, 
And men on men ; each heart was as a hell of storms. 30 



Man, the imperial shape, then multiplied 

His generations under the pavilion 
Of the Sun's throne : palace and pyramid, 

Temple and prison, to many a swarming million, 
Were, as to mountain-wolves their ragged caves. 35 

This human living multitude 
Was savage, cunning, blind, and rude, 
For thou wert not ; but o'er the populous solitude, 
Like one fierce cloud over a waste of waves 

Hung Tyranny ; beneath, sate deified 40 

The sister-pest, congregator of slaves; 
Into the shadow of her pinions wide 
Anarchs and priests who feed on gold and blood, 
Till with the stain their inmost souls are dyed. 
Drove the astonished herds of men from every side. 45 



ODE TO LIBERTY. 187 



The nodding promontories, and blue isles, 

And cloud-like mountains, and dividuous waves 
Of Greece, basked glorious in the open smiles 

Of favouring heaven : from their enchanted caves 
Prophetic echoes flung dim melody. 50 

On the unapprehensive wild 
The vine, the corn, the olive mild, 
Grew savage yet, to human use unreconciled ; 
And, like unfolded flowers beneath the sea, 

Like the man's thought dark in the infant's brain, 55 
Like aught that is which wraps what is to be, 
Art's deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein 
Of Parian stone ; and, yet a speechless child. 
Verse murmured, and Philosophy did strain 
Her lidless eyes for thee; when o'er the ^gean main 60 



Athens arose : a city such as vision 

Builds from the purple crags and silver towers 
Of battlemented cloud, as in derision 

Of kingliest masonry : the ocean-floors 
Pave it ; the evening sky pavilions it ; 65 

Its portals are inhabited 
By thunder-zoned winds, each head 
Within its cloudy wings with sunfire garlanded, 
A divine work ! Athens diviner yet 

Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will 70 

Of man, as on a mount of diamond, set ; 
For thou wert, and thine all-creative skill 
Peopled with forms that mock the eternal dead 
In marble immortality, that hill 
Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle. 75 



SELECTED POEMS. 



VI. 



Within the surface of Time's fleeting river 

Its wrinkled image lies, as then it lay 
Immovably unquiet, and for ever 

It trembles, but it cannot pass away ! 
The voices of thy bards and sages thunder 80 

With an earth-awakening blast 
Through the caverns of the past ; 
Religion veils her eyes ; Oppression shrinks aghast : 
A winged sound of joy, and love, and wonder, 

Which soars where Expectation never flew, 85 

Rending the veil of space and time asunder ! 

One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew ; 
One sun illumines heaven ; one spirit vast 
With life and love makes chaos ever new. 
As Athens doth the world with thy delight renew. 9° 



Then Rome was, and from thy deep bosom fairest, 

Like a wolf-cub from a Cadmaean Maenad, 
She drew the milk of greatness, though thy dearest 

From that Elysiah food was yet unweaned ; 
And many a deed of terrible uprightness 95 

By thy sweet love was sanctified ; 
And in thy smile, and by thy side, 
, Saintly Camillus lived, and firm Atilius died. 

But when tears stained thy robe of vestal whiteness, 

And gold profaned thy capitolian throne, 100 

Thou didst desert, with spirit-winged lightness, 
The senate of the tyrants : they sunk prone 
Slaves of one tyrant : Palatinus sighed 
Faint echoes of Ionian song; that tone 
Thou didst delay to hear, lamenting to disown. 105 



ODE TO LIBERTY. 189 



From what Hyrcanian glen or frozen hill, 
Or piny promontory of the Arctic main, 
Or utmost islet inaccessible, 

Didst thou lament the ruin of thy reign, 
Teaching the woods, and waves, and desert rocks, no 

And every Naiad's ice-cold urn. 
To talk in echoes sad and stern, 
Of that sublimest lore which man had dared unlearn ? 
For neither didst thou watch the wizard flocks 

Of the Scald's dreams, nor haunt the Druid's sleep. 115 
What if the tears rained through thy shattered locks 
Were quickly dried? for thou didst groan, not weep 
When from its sea of death to kill and burn, 
The Galilean serpent forth did creep, 
And made thy world an undistinguishable heap. 120 



A thousand years the Earth cried, Where art thou ? 

And then the shadow of thy coming fell 
On Saxon Alfred's olive-cinctured brow : 

And many a warrior-peopled citadel, 
Like rocks which fire lifts out of the flat deep, 125 

Arose in sacred Italy, 
Frowning o'er the tempestuous sea 
Of kings, and priests, and slaves, in tower-crowned majesty; 
That multitudinous anarchy did sweep. 

And burst around their walls, like idle foam, 130 

Whilst from the human spirit's deepest deep 
Strange melody with love and awe struck dumb 
Dissonant arms ; and Art, which cannot die, 
With divine wand traced on our earthly home 
Fit imagery to pave heaven's everlasting dome. 135 



190 SELECTED POEMS. 



Thou huntress swifter than the Moon ! thou terror 
Of the world's wolves ! thou bearer of the quiver, 
Whose sunlike shafts pierce tempest-winged Error, 

As light may pierce the clouds when they dissever 
In the calm regions of the orient day ! 140 

Luther caught thy wakening glance ; 
Like lightning, from his leaden lance 
Reflected, it dissolved the visions of the trance 
In which, as in a tomb, the nations lay ; 

And England's prophets hailed thee as their queen, HS 
In songs whose music cannot pass away. 
Though it must flow for ever : not unseen 
Before the spirit-sighted countenance 

Of Milton didst thou pass, from the sad scene 

Beyond whose night he saw, with a dejected mien. 150 



The eager hours and unreluctant years 

As on a dawn-illumined mountain stood, 
Trampling to silence their loud hopes and fears. 

Darkening each other with their multitude. 
And cried aloud, Liberty ! Indignation ^55 

Answered Pity from her cave ; 
Death grew pale within the grave. 
And Desolation howled to the destroyer, Save! 
When like heaven's sun girt by the exhalation 

Of its own glorious light, thou didst arise, 160 

Chasing thy foes from nation unto nation 

Like shadows : as if day had cloven the skies 
At dreaming midnight o'er the western wave, 
Men started, staggering with a glad surprise, 
Under the lightnings of thine unfamiliar eyes. 165 



ODE TO LIBERTY. 19: 



Thou heaven of earth ! what spells could pall thee then, 

In ominous eclipse ? a thousand years 
Bred from the slime of deep oppression's den 

Dyed all thy liquid light with blood and tears, 
Till thy sweet stars could weep the stain away ; 170 

How like Bacchanals of blood 
Round France, the ghastly vintage, stood 
Destruction's sceptred slaves, and Folly's mitred brood ! 
When one, like them, but mightier far than they. 

The Anarch of thine own bewildered powers 175 

Rose: armies mingled in obscure array. 

Like clouds with clouds, darkening the sacred bowers 
Of serene heaven. He, by the past pursued. 
Rests with those dead, but unforgotten hours. 
Whose ghosts scare victor kings in their ancestral towers. 180 



England yet sleeps : was she not called of old ? 

Spain calls her now, as with its thrilling thunder 
Vesuvius wakens ^^tna, and the cold 

Snow-crags by its reply are cloven in sunder: 
O'er the lit waves every vEolian isle 185 

From Pithecusa to Pelorus 
Howls, and leaps, and glares in chorus: 
They cry. Be dim ; ye lamps of heaven suspended o'er us. 
Her chains are threads of gold, she need but smile 

And they dissolve ; but Spain's were links of steel, 190 
Till bit to dust by virtue's keenest file. 
Twins of a single destiny! appeal 
To the eternal years enthroned before us. 
In the dim West ; impress us from a seal. 
All ye have thought and done! Time cannot dare conceal. 195 



192 SELECTED POEMS. 

XIV. 

Tomb of Arminius ! render up thy dead, 

Till, like a standard from a watch-tower's staff, 
His soul may stream over the tyrant's head; 

Thy victory shall be his epitaph, 
Wild Bacchanal of truth's mysterious wine, 200 

King-deluded Germany, 
His dead spirit lives in thee. 
Why do we fear or hope ? thou art already free ! 
And thou, lost Paradise of this divine 

And glorious world ! thou flowery wilderness ! 205 

Thou island of eternity! thou shrine 

Where desolation clothed with loveliness, 
Worships the thing thou wert ! O Italy, 
Gather thy blood into thy heart ; repress 
The beasts who make their dens thy sacred palaces. 210 



O, that the free would stamp the impious name 

Of King into the dust ! or write it there, 
So that this blot upon the page of fame 

Were as a serpent's path, which the light air 
Erases, and the flat sands close behind! 215 

Ye the oracle have heard: 
Lift the victory-flashing sword. 
And cut the snaky knots of this foul gordian word, 
Which weak itself as stubble, yet can bind 

Into a mass, irrefragably firm, 220 

The axes and the rods which awe mankind ; 
The sound has poison in it, 't is the sperm 
Of what makes life foul, cankerous, and abhorred ; 
Disdain not thou, at thine appointed term. 
To set thine armed heel on this reluctant worm. 225 



ODE TO LIBERTY. ^93 



XVI. 



O, that the wise from their bright minds would kindle 

Such lamps within the dome of this dim world, 
That the pale name of Priest might shrink and dwindle 

Into the hell from which it first was hurled, 
A scoff of impious pride from fiends impure ; 230 

Till human thoughts might kneel alone 
Each before the judgment-throne 
Of its own aweless soul, or of the power unknown ! 
O, that the words which make the thoughts obscure 

From which they spring, as clouds of glimmering dew 235 
From a white lake blot heaven's blue portraiture, 
Were stripped of their thin masks and various hue 
And frowns and smiles and splendours not their own, 
Till in the nakedness of false and true 
They stand before their Lord, each to receive its due. 240 



XVII. 



He who taught man to vanquish whatsoever 
Can be between the cradle and the grave 
Crowned him the King of Life. O vain endeavour ! 

If on his own high will, a willing slave, 
He has enthroned the oppression and the oppressor. 245 
What if earth can clothe and feed 
Amplest millions at their need. 
And power in thought be as the tree within the seed ? 
O, what if Art, an ardent intercessor. 

Driving on fiery wings to Nature's throne, 250 

Checks the great mother stooping to caress her. 
And cries : Give me, thy child, dominion 
Over all height and depth? if Life can breed 

New wants, and wealth from those who toil and groan 
Rend of thy gifts and hers a thousand fold for one. 255 



194 SELECTED POEMS. 



Come Thou, but lead out of the inmost cave 

Of man's deep spirit, as the morning-star 
Beckons the Sun from the Eoan wave, 

Wisdom. I hear the pennons of her car 
Self-moving, like cloud charioted by flame ; 260 

Comes she not, and come ye not. 
Rulers of eternal thought, 
To judge, with solemn truth, life's ill-apportioned lot ? 
Blind Love, and equal Justice, and the Fame 

Of what has been, the Hope of what will be ? 265 

O, Liberty ! if such could be thy name 

Wert thou disjoined from these, or they from thee : 
If thine or theirs were treasures to be bought 
By blood or tears, have not the wise and free 
Wept tears, and blood like tears ? The solemn harmony 270 



Paused, and the spirit of that mighty singing 

To its abyss was suddenly withdrawn ; 
Then, as a wild swan, when sublimely winging 
Its path athwart the thunder-smoke of dawn, 
Sinks headlong through the aerial golden light 275 

On the heavy sounding plain. 
When the bolt has pierced its brain ; 
As summer clouds dissolve, unburthened of their rain ; 
As a far taper fades with fading night. 

As a brief insect dies with dying day, 280 

My song, its pinions disarrayed of might. 
Drooped ; o'er it closed the echoes far away 
Of the great voice which did its flight sustain, 
As waves which lately paved his watery way 
Hiss round a drowner's head in their tempestuous play. 285 
Spring, 1820. 



ARETHUSA. 195 

ARETHUSA. 
I. 

Arethusa arose 

From her couch of snows 
In the Acroceraunian mountains, — 

From cloud and from crag, 

With many a jag, 5 

Shepherding her bright fountains. 

She leapt down the rocks, 

With her rainbow locks 
Streaming among the streams; — 

Her steps paved with green 10 

The downward ravine 
Which slopes to the western gleams : 

And gliding and springing 

She went, ever singing, 
In murmurs as soft as sleep ; 15 

The Earth seemed to love her, 

And Heaven smiled above her. 
As she lingered towards the deep. 



Then Alpheus bold, 

On his glacier cold, 20 

With his trident the mountains strook 

And opened a chasm 

In the rocks; — with the spasm 
All Erymanthus shook. 

And the black south wind 25 

It concealed behind 
The urns of the silent snow. 

And earthquake and thunder 

Did rend in sunder 



gG SELECTED FOE MS. 

The bars of the springs below: 3° 

The beard and the hair - 

Of the River-god were 
Seen through the torrent's sweep, 

As he followed the light 

Of the fleet nymph's flight 35 

To the brink of the Dorian deep. 

III. 

" Oh, save me ! Oh, guide me ! 

And bid the deep hide me, 
For he grasps me. now by the hair !" 

The loud Ocean heard, 4o 

To its blue depth stirred, 
And divided at her prayer ; 

And under the water 

The Earth's white daughter 
Fled like a sunny beam ; 45 

Behind her descended 

Her billows, unblended 
With the brackish Dorian stream : — 

Like a gloomy stain 

On the emerald main 5° 

Alpheus rushed behind, — 

As an eagle pursuing 

A dove to its ruin 
Down the streams of the cloudy wind. 



Under the bowers 55 

Where the Ocean Powers 
Sit on their pearled thrones. 
Through the coral woods 



Of the weltering floods, 



ARE THUS A. I97 

Over heaps of unvalued stones; 60 

Through the dim beams 

Which amid the streams 
Weave a net-work of coloured light; 

And under the caves, 

Where the shadowy waves 65 

Are as green as the forest's night : — 

Outspeeding the shark 

And the sword-fish dark, 
Under the ocean foam, 

And up through the rifts 7° 

Of the mountain clifts 
They passed to their Dorian home. 



And now from their fountains 

In Enna's mountains, 
Down one vale where the morning basks, 75 

Like friends once parted 

Grown single-hearted, 
They ply their watery tasks. 

At sunrise they leap 

From their cradles steep 80 

In the cave of the shelving hill ; 

At noon-tide they flow 

Through, the woods below 
And the meadows of Asphodel ; 

And at night they sleep 85 

In the rocking deep 
Beneath the Ortygian shore ; — 

Like spirits that lie 

In the azure sky 
When they love but live no more. 9° 

1820. 



198 SELECTED POEMS. 

TO 

I. 

I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden, 
Thou needest not fear mine ; 

My spirit is too deeply laden 
Ever to burthen thine. 



I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion, 
Thou needest not fear mine ; 

Innocent is the heart's devotion 
With which I worship thine. 



[820. 



THE QUESTION. 
I. 

I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way, 
Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring, 

And gentle odours led my steps astray. 
Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring 

Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay 
Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling 

Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, 

But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream. 



There grew pied wind-flowers and violets. 
Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth, 

The constellated flower that never sets ; 

Faint oxlips ; tender bluebells, at whose birth 

The sod scarce heaved ; and that tall flower that wets 
(Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth) 



THE QUESTION. 199 

Its mother's face with heaven's collected tears, 15 

When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears. 



And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, 

Green cowbind and the moonlight-coloured May, 

And cherry-blossoms, and white cups, whose wine 
Was the bright dew, yet drained not by the day ; 

And wild roses, and ivy serpentine, 

With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray; 

And flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold, 

Fairer than any wakened eyes behold. 



And nearer to the river's trembling edge 25 

There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prankt with 
white. 

And starry river-buds among the sedge, 
And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, 

Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge 

With moonlight beams of their own watery light ; 30 

And bulrushes and reeds of such deep green 

As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen. 



Methought that of these visionary flowers 

I made a nosegay, bound in such a way 
That the same hues, which in their natural bowers 35 

Were mingled or opposed, the like array 
Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours 

Within my hand, — and then, elate and gay, 
I hastened to the spot whence I had come, 
That I might there present it ! — oh ! to whom ? 40 

1820. 



2 00 SELECTED POEMS. 



SONG OF PROSERPINE, 

WHILE GATHERING FLOWERS ON THE PLAIN OF ENNA. 
I. 

Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth, 
Thou from whose immortal bosom 

Gods and men and beasts have birth. 
Leaf and blade and bud and blossom, 

Breathe thine influence most divine 

On thine own child, Proserpine. 



If with mists of evening dew 

Thou dost nourish these young flowers 
Till they grow, in scent and hue, 

Fairest children of the hours, 
Breathe thine influence most divine 
On thine own child, Proserpine. 



[820. 



HYMN OF APOLLO. 



The sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie. 
Curtained with star-inwoven tapestries, 

From the broad moonlight of the sky. 

Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes, — 

Waken me when their Mother, the gray Dawn, 

Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone. 



HYMN OF APOLLO. 



Then I arise, and climbing Heaven's blife dome, 
I walk over the mountains and the waves, 

Leaving my robe upon the ocean foam ; 

My footsteps pave the clouds with fire ; the caves lo 

Are filled with my bright presence, and the air 

Leaves the green earth to my embraces bare. 

III. 

The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill 
Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day ; 

All men who do or even imagine ill ^5 

Fly me, and from the glory of my ray 

Good minds and open actions take new might, 

Until diminished by the reign of night. 



I feed the clouds, the rainbows and the flowers 
With their aetherial colours; the Moon's globe 

And the pure stars in their eternal bowers 
Are cinctured with my power as with a robe ; 

Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shine. 

Are portions of one power, which is mine. 



I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven, 25 

Then with unwilling steps I wander down 

Into the clouds of the Atlantic even ; 

For grief that I depart they weep and frown : 

What look is more delightful than the smile 

With which I soothe them from the western isle 1 30 



SELECTED POEMS. 



I am the eye with which the Universe 

Beholds itself and knows itself divine ; 
All harmony of instrument or verse, 

All prophecy, all medicine are mine, 
All light of art or nature ; — to my song, 35 

Victory and praise in their own right belong. 

1820. 



HYMN OF PAN. 



From the forests and highlands 

We come, we come ; 
From the river-girt islands. 

Where loud waves are dumb 

Listening to my sweet pipings. 
The wind in the reeds and the rushes. 

The bees on the bells of thyme. 
The birds on the myrtle bushes. 
The cicale above in the lime, 
And the lizards below in the grass. 
Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was. 
Listening to my sweet pipings. 



Liquid Peneus was flowing, 

And all dark Tempe lay 
In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing 15 

The light of the dying day. 

Speeded by my sweet pipings. 



LETTER TO MARIA GISBORNE. 203 

The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns, 

And the Nymphs of the woods and waves, 

To the edge of the moist river-lawns, 20 

And the brink of the dewy caves, 

And all that did then attend and follow 

Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo, 
With envy of my sweet pipings. 



I sang of the dancing stars, 25 

I sang of the daedal Earth, 
And of Heaven — and the giant wars. 

And Love, and Death, and Birth, — 

And then I changed my pipings, — 
Singing how down the vale of Menalus 30 

I pursued a maiden and clasped a reed : 
Gods and men, we are all deluded thus ! 

It breaks in our bosom and then we bleed: 
All wept, as I think both ye now would. 
If envy or age had not frozen your blood, 35 

At the sorrow of my sweet pipings. 

1820. 



LETTER TO MARIA GISBORNE. 

Leghorn, /f^/j/ i, 1820. 

The spider spreads her webs, whether she be 

In poet's tower, cellar, or barn, or tree ; 

The silk-worm in the dark green mulberry leaves 

His winding sheet and cradle ever weaves ; 

So I, a thing whom moralists call worm, 5 

Sit spinning still round this decaying form, 



204 SELECTED POEMS. 

P>om the fine threads of rare and subtle thought — 

No net of words in garish colours wrought 

To catch the idle buzzers of the day — 

But a soft cell, where when that fades away, lo 

Memory may clothe in wings my living name 

And feed it with the asphodels of fame, 

Which in those hearts which must remember me 

Grow, making love an immortality. 

Whoever should behold me now, I wist, 15 

Would think I were a mighty mechanist, 
Bent with sublime Archimedean art 
To breathe a soul into the iron heart 
Of some machine portentous, or strange gin. 
Which by the force of figured spells might win 20 

Its way over the sea, and sport therein ; 
For round the walls are hung dread engines, such 
As Vulcan never wrought for Jove to clutch 
Ixion or the Titan : — or the quick 

Wit of that man of God, St. Dominic, 25 

To convince Atheist, Turk or Heretic, 
Or those in philanthropic council met, 
Who thought to pay some interest for the debt 
They owed to Jesus Christ for their salvation, 
By giving a faint foretaste of damnation 3° 

To Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser and the rest 
Who made our land an island of the bless'd, 
When lamp-like Spain, who now relumes her fire 
On Freedom's hearth, grew dim with Empire : — 
With thumbscrews, wheels, with tooth and spike and jag, 35 
Which fishers found under the utmost crag 
Of Cornwall and the storm-encompassed isles. 
Where to the sky the rude sea rarely smiles 
Unless in treacherous wrath, as on the morn 



LETTER TO MARIA GISBORNE. 205 

When the exulting elements in scorn 40 

Satiated with destroyed destruction, lay 

Sleeping in beauty on their mangled prey, 

As panthers sleep; — and other strange and dread 

Magical forms the brick floor overspread 

Proteus transformed to metal did not make 45 

More figures, or more strange ; nor did he take 

Such shapes of unintelligible brass, 

Or heap himself in such a horrid mass 

Of tin and iron not to be understood; 

And forms of unimaginable wood, 50 

To puzzle Tubal Cain and all his brood: 

Great screws, and cones, and wheels, and grooved 

blocks, 
The elements of what will stand the shocks 
Of wave and wind and time. — Upon the table 
More knacks and quips there be than I am able 55 

To catalogize in this verse of mine : — 
A pretty bowl of wood — not full of wine. 
But quicksilver ; that dew which the gnomes drink 
When at their subterranean toil they swink, 
Pledging the daemons of the earthquake, who 60 

Reply to them in lava — cry halloo ! 
And call out to the cities o'er their head, — 
Roofs, towers and shrines, the dying and the dead, 
Crash through the chinks of earth — and then all 

quaff 
Another rouse, and hold their sides and laugh. 65 

This quicksilver no gnome has drunk — within 
The walnut bowl it lies, veined and thin. 
In colour like the wake of light that stains 
The Tuscan deep, when from the moist moon rains 
The inmost shower of its white fire — the breeze 10 

Is still — blue heaven smiles over the pale seas. 



2o6 SELECTED POEMS. 

And in this bowl of quicksilver — for I 

Yield to the impulse of an infancy 

Outlasting manhood — I have made to float 

A rude idealism of a paper boat, — 75 

A hollow screw with cogs — Henry will know 

The thing I mean and laugh at me, — if so 

He fears not I should do more mischief. — Next 

Lie bills and calculations much perplexed, 

With steam-boats, frigates, and machinery quaint 80 

Traced over them in blue and yellow paint. 

Then comes a range of mathematical 

Instruments, for plans nautical and statical ; 

A heap of rosin, a queer broken glass 

With ink in it ; — a china cup that was 85 

What it will never be again, I think, 

A thing from which sweet lips were wont to drink 

The liquor doctors rail at — and which I 

Will quaff in spite of them — and when we die 

We '11 toss up who died first of drinking tea, 90 

And cry out, — " heads or tails ? " where'er we be. 

Near that a dusty paint-box, some odd hooks, 

A half-burnt match, an ivory block, three books, 

Where conic sections, spherics, logarithms, 

To great Laplace, from Saunderson and Sims, 95 

Lie heaped in their harmonious disarray 

Of figures, — disentangle them who may. 

Baron de Tott's Memoirs beside them lie. 

And some odd volumes of old chemistry. 

Near those a most inexplicable thing, 100 

With lead in the middle — I 'm conjecturing 

How to make Henry understand ; but no — 

I '11 leave, as Spenser says, with many mo, 

This secret in the pregnant womb of time, 

Too vast a matter for so weak a rhyme. 105 



LETTER TO MARIA GISBORNE. 207 

And here like some weird Archimage sit I, 
Plotting dark spells, and devilish enginery, 
The self-impelling steam-wheels of the mind 
Which pump up oaths from clergymen, and grind 
The gentle spirit of our meek reviews no 

Into a powdery foam of salt abuse, 
Ruffling the ocean of their self-content ; — 
I sit — and smile or sigh as is my bent, 
But not for them — Libeccio rushes round 
With an inconstant and an idle sound; 115 

I heed him more than them — the thunder-smoke 
Is gathering on the mountains, like a cloke 
Folded athwart their shoulders broad and bare ; 
The ripe corn under the undulating air 
Undulates like an ocean; — and the vines 120 

Are trembling wide in all their trellised lines — 
The murmur of the awakening sea doth fill 
The empty pauses of the blast ; — the hill 
Looks hoary through the white electric rain, 
And from the glens beyond, in sullen strain, 125 

The interrupted thunder howls ; above 
One chasm of heaven smiles, like the eye of Love 
On the unquiet world ; — while such things are. 
How could one worth your friendship heed the war 
Of worms? the shriek of the world's carrion jays, 130 

Their censure, or their wonder, or their praise ? 

You are not here! the quaint witch Memory sees 
In vacant chairs, your absent images. 
And points where once you sat, and now should be 
But are not. — I demand if ever we 135 

Shall meet as then we met ; and she replies. 
Veiling in awe her second-sighted eyes ; — 
" I know the past alone — but summon home 



2o8 SELECTED POEMS. 

" My sister Hope, — she speaks of all to come." 

But I, an old diviner, who knew well 140 

Every false verse of that sweet oracle, 

Turned to the sad enchantress once again, 

And sought a respite from my gentle pain, 

In citing every passage o'er and o'er 

Of our communion — how on the sea-shore MS 

We watched the ocean and the sky together, 

Under the roof of blue Italian weather ; 

How I ran home through last year's thunder-storm. 

And felt the transverse lightning linger warm 

Upon my cheek — and how we often made 150 

Feasts for each other, where good will outweighed 

The frugal luxury of our country cheer. 

As well it might, were it less firm and clear 

Than ours must ever be ; — and how we spun 

A shroud of talk to hide us from the sun ^55 

Of this familiar life, which seems to be 

But is not, — or is but quaint mockery 

Of all we would believe, and sadly blame 

The jarring and inexplicable frame 

Of this wrong world : — and then anatomize 160 

The purposes and thoughts of men whose eyes 

Were closed in distant years ; — or widely guess 

The issue of the earth's great business. 

When we shall be as we no longer are — 

Like babbling gossips safe, who hear the war 165 

Of winds, and sigh, but tremble not ; — or how 

You listened to some interrupted flow 

Of visionary rhyme, — in joy and pain 

Struck from the inmost fountains of my brain. 

With little skill perhaps ; — or how we sought 170 

Those deepest wells of passion or of thought 

Wrought by wise poets in the waste of years, 



LETTER TO MARIA GISBORNE. 209 

Staining their sacred waters with our tears ; 

Quenching a thirst ever to be renewed ! 

Or how I, wisest lady ! then indued '75 

The language of a land which now is free, 

And, winged with thoughts of truth and majesty, 

Flits round the tyrant's sceptre like a cloud, 

And bursts the peopled prisons, and cries aloud, 

" My name is Legion ! " — that majestic tongue, 180 

Which Calderon over the desert flung 

Of ages and of nations ; and which found 

An echo in our hearts, and with the sound 

Startled oblivion ; — thou wert then to me 

As is a nurse — when inarticulately '^5 

A child would talk as its grown parents do. 

If living winds the rapid clouds pursue. 

If hawks chase doves through the aetherial way, 

Huntsmen the innocent deer, and beasts their prey, 

Why should not we rouse with the spirit's blast 190 

Out of the forest of the pathless past 

These recollected pleasures ? 

You are now 

In London, that great sea, whose ebb and flow 

At once is deaf and loud, and on the shore 

Vomits its wrecks, and still howls on for more. ^95 

Yet in its depth what treasures ! You will see 

That which was Godwin, — greater none than he 

Though fallen — and fallen on evil times — to stand 

Among the spirits of our age and land. 

Before the dread tribunal of to-come 200 

The foremost, — while Rebuke cowers pale and dumb. 

You will see Coleridge — he who sits obscure 

In the exceeding lustre and the pure 

Intense irradiation of a mind 

Which, with its own internal lightning blind, 205 



lo SELECTED POEMS. 

Flags wearily through darkness and despair — 
A cloud-encircled meteor of the air, 

A hooded eagle among blinking owls. 

You will see Hunt — one of those happy souls 

Which are the salt of the earth, and without whom 210 

This world would smell like what it is — a tomb ; 

Who is, what others seem; his room no doubt 

Is still adorned by many a cast from Shout, 

With graceful flowers tastefully placed about ; 

And coronals of bay from ribbons hung, 215 

And brighter wreaths in neat disorder flung ; 

The gifts of the most learn'd among some dozens 

Of female friends, sisters-in-law and cousins. 

And there is he with his eternal puns, 

Which beat the dullest brain for smiles, like duns 220 

Thundering for money at a poet's door ; 

Alas ! it is no use to say, "I 'm poor!" — 

Or oft in graver mood, when he will look 

Things wiser than were ever read in book. 

Except in Shakespeare's wisest tenderness. — 225 

You will see Hogg, — and I cannot express 

His virtues, — though I know that they are great, 

Because he locks, then barricades the gate 

Within which they inhabit ; — of his wit 

And wisdom, you '11 cry out when you are bit. 230 

He is a pearl within an oyster-shell. 

One of the richest of the deep ; — and there 

Is English Peacock with his mountain fair 

Turned into a Flamingo ; — that shy bird 

That gleams i' the Indian air — have you not heard, 235 

When a man marries, dies, or turns Hindoo, 

His best friends hear no more of him ? — but you 

Will see him, and will like him too, I hope, 

With the milk-white Snowdonian Antelope 



LETTER TO MARIA G IS BORNE. 2ii 

Matched with this cameleopard : — his fine wit 240 

Makes such a wound, the knife is lost in it ; 

A strain too learned for a shallow age, 

Too wise for selfish bigots, let his page. 

Which charms the chosen spirits of the time, 

Fold itself up for the serener clime 245 

Of years to come, and find its recompense 

In that just expectation. — Wit and sense, 

Virtue and human knowledge, all that might 

Make this dull world a business of delight, 

Are all combined in Horace Smith. — And these, 250 

With some exceptions, which I need not tease 

Your patience by descanting on, — are all 

You and 1 know in London. 

I recall 
My thoughts, and bid you look upon the night. 
As water does a sponge, so the moonlight 255 

Fills the void, hollow, universal air : — 
What see you? — unpavilioned heaven is fair 
Whether the moon, into her chamber gone, 
Leaves midnight to the golden stars, or wan 
Climbs with diminished beams the azure steep ; 260 

Or whether clouds sail o'er the inverse deep, 
Piloted by the many-wandering blast. 

And the rare stars rush through them dim and fast : 

All this is beautiful in every land. 

But what see you beside? — a shabby stand 265 

Of Hackney coaches — a brick house or wall 

Fencing some lonely court, white with the scrawl 

Of our unhappy politics ; — or worse — 

A wretched woman reeling by, whose curse 

Mixed with the watchman's, partner of her trade, 270 

You must accept in place of serenade ; — 

Or yellow haired PoUonia, murmuring 



2 12 SELECTED POEMS. 

To Henry some unutterable thing. 

I see a chaos of green leaves and fruit 

Built round dark caverns, even to the root 275 

Of the living stems that feed them — in whose bovvers 

There sleep in their dark dew the folded flowers ; 

Beyond, the surface of the unsickled corn 

Trembles not in the slumbering air, and, borne 

In circles quaint, and ever-changing dance, 280 

Like winged stars the fire-flies flash and glance, 

Pale in the open moonshine; but each one 

Under the dark trees seems a little sun, 

A meteor tamed, a fixed star gone astray 

From the silver regions of the milky way ; — 285 

Afar the Contadino's song is heard, 

Rude, but made sweet by distance — and a bird 

Which cannot be the Nightingale, and yet 

I know none else that sings so sweet as it 

At this late hour ; — and then all is still 290 

Now Italy or London, which you will ! 

Next winter you must pass with me; I '11 have 
My house by that time turned into a grave 
Of dead despondence and low-thoughted care, 
And all the dreams which our tormentors are ; 295 

Oh ! that Hunt, Hogg, Peacock and Smith were there. 
With every thing belonging to them fair ! — 
We will have books, Spanish, Italian, Greek ; 
And ask one week to make another week 
As like his father as I 'm unlike mine, 300 

Which is not his fault, as you may divine. 
Though we eat little flesh and drink no wine, 
Yet let 's be merry : we '11 have tea and toast, 
Custards for supper, and an endless host 
Of syllabubs and jellies and mince-pies, 3^5 



ODE TO NAPLES. 213 

And other such lady-like luxuries, — 

Feasting on which we will philosophize ! 

And we '11 have fires out of the Grand Duke's wood, 

To thaw the six weeks' winter in our blood. 

And then we '11 talk ; — what shall we talk about? 310 

Oh ! there are themes enough for many a bout 

Of thought-entangled descant ; — as to nerves — 

With cones and parallelograms and curves 

I 've sworn to strangle them if once they dare 

To bother me — when you are with me there. 3^5 

And they shall never more sip laudanum, 

From Helicon or Himeros ; — well, come ; 

And, in despite of God and of the devil, 

We '11 make our friendly philosophic revel 

Outlast the leafless time ; till buds and flowers 320 

Warn the obscure inevitable hours. 

Sweet meeting by sad parting to renew ; — 

"To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new." 



ODE TO NAPLES. 



EPODE I. a. 



I STOOD within the city disinterred. 

And heard the autumnal leaves like light footfalls 
Of spirits passing through the streets, and heard 

The Mountain's slumberous voice at intervals 

Thrill through those roofless halls ; S 

The oracular thunder penetrating shook 

The listening soul in my suspended blood ; 
I felt that Earth out of her deep heart spoke — 

I felt, but heard not : — through white columns glowed 
The isle-sustaining Ocean-flood, 10 



2 14 SELECTED POEMS. 

A plane of light between two Heavens of azure : 

Around me gleamed many a bright sepulchre 
Of whose pure beauty, Time, as if his pleasure 
Were to spare Death, had never made erasure ; 

But every living lineament was clear 15 

As in the sculptor's thought ; and there 
The wreaths of stony myrtle, ivy and pine. 

Like winter leaves o'ergrown by moulded snow, 

Seemed only not to move and grow 
Because the crystal silence of the air 20 

Weighed on their life ; even as the Power divine 

Which then lulled all things, brooded upon mine. 

EPODE II. a. 

Then gentle winds arose 

With many a mingled close 
Of wild JEolian sound and mountain-odour keen ; 25 

And where the Baian ocean 

Welters with air-like motion. 
Within, above, around its bowers of starry green, 
Moving the sea-flowers in those purple caves 

Even as the ever stormless atmosphere 3° 

Floats o'er the Elysian realm. 
It bore me like an Angel, o'er the waves 

Of sunlight, whose swift pinnace of dewy air 

No storm can overwhelm ; 

I sailed, where ever flows 35 

Under the calm Serene 

A spirit of deep emotion 

From the unknown graves 

Of the dead kings of Melody. 
Shadowy Aornos darkened o'er the helm 4o 

The horizontal aether ; heaven stripped bare 
Its depths over Elysium, where the prow 



ODE TO NAPLES. 215 

Made the invisible water white as snow ; 
From that Typhaean mount, Inarime, 

There streamed a sunlight vapour, like the standard 45 
Of some aetherial host ; 
Whilst from all the coast, 
Louder and louder, gathering round, there wandered 
Over the oracular woods and divine sea 
Prophesyings which grew articulate — . 5° 

They seize me — I must speak them — be they fate ! 

STROPHE a. I. 

Naples ! thou Heart of men which ever pantest 

Naked, beneath the lidless eye of heaven ! 
Elysian City which to calm enchantest 

The mutinous air and sea : they round thee, even 55 

As sleep round Love, are driven ! 
Metropolis of a ruined Paradise 

Long lost, late won, and yet but half regained ! 
Bright Altar of the bloodless sacrifice, 

Which armed Victory offers up unstained 60 

To Love, the flower-enchained ! 
Thou which wert once, and then didst cease to be, 
Now art, and henceforth ever shalt be, free, 

If Hope, and Truth, and Justice can avail, 

Hail, hail, all hail ! 65 

STROPHE /3. 2. 

Thou youngest giant birth 

Which from the groaning earth 
Leap'st, clothed in armour of impenetrable scale ! 

Last of the Intercessors ! 

Who 'gainst the Crowned Transgressors 70 

Pleadest before God's love ! Arrayed in Wisdom's mail, 



2i6 SELECTED POEMS. 

Wave thy lightning lance in mirth, 
Nor let thy high heart fail, 
Though from their hundred gates the leagued Oppressors, 

With hurried legions move! 75 

Hail, hail, all hail ! 

ANTISTROrHE a. 

What though Cimmerian Anarchs dare blaspheme 

Freedom and thee ? thy shield is as a mirror 
To make their blind slaves see, and with fierce gleam 

To turn his hungry sword upon the wearer ; 80 

A new Actaeon's error 
Shall theirs have been — devoured by their own hounds ! 

Be thou like the imperial Basilisk 
Killing thy foe with unapparent wounds ! 

Gaze on oppression, till at that dread risk 85 

Aghast she pass from the Earth's disk : 
Fear not, but gaze — for freemen mightier grow, 
And slaves more feeble, gazing on their foe ; 

If Hope and Truth and Justice may avail, 

Thou shalt be great. — All hail ! 9° 

ANTISTROPHE /3. 2. 

From Freedom's form divine, 

From Nature's inmost shrine. 
Strip every impious gawd, rend Error veil by veil : 

O'er Ruin desolate. 

O'er Falsehood's fallen state, 95 

Sit thou sublime, unawed ; be the Destroyer pale ! 

And equal laws be thine, 

And winged words let sail. 
Freighted with truth even from the throne of God : 

That wealth, surviving fate, loo 

Be thine. — All hail ! 



ODE TO NAPLES. 217 

ANTISTROPHE a. 7. 

Didst thou not start to hear Spain's thrilling paean 

From land to land re-echoed solemnly, 
Till silence became music ? From the ^aean 

To the cold Alps, eternal Italy 105 

Starts to hear thine ! The Sea 
Which paves the desert streets of Venice laughs 

In light and music ; widowed Genoa wan 
By moonlight spells ancestral epitaphs. 

Murmuring, where is Doria ? fair Milan, no 

Within whose veins long ran 
The viper's palsying venom, lifts her heel 
To bruise his head. The signal and the seal 
(If Hope and Truth and Justice can avail) 
Art Thou of all these hopes. — O hail ! "5 

ANTISTROPHE j3. 7. 

Florence ! beneath the sun, 

Of cities fairest one, 
Blushes within her bower for Freedom's expectation : 

From eyes of quenchless hope 

Rome tears the priestly cope, 120 

As ruling once by power, so now by admiration, 

As athlete stripped to run 

From a remoter station 
For the high prize lost on Philippi's shore : — 

As then Hope, Truth, and Justice did avail, 125 

So now may Fraud and Wrong ! O hail ! 

EPODE I. j3. 

Hear ye the march as of the Earth-born Forms 

Arrayed against the ever-living' Gods ? 
The crash and darkness of a thousand storms 

Bursting their inaccessible abodes 130 

Of crags and thunder-clouds t 



2i8 SELECTED POEMS. 

See ye the banners blazoned to the day, 

Inwrought with emblems of barbaric pride ? 
Dissonant threats kill Silence far away ; 

The serene Heaven which wraps our Eden wide i35 

With iron light is dyed ; 
The Anarchs of the North lead forth their legions 

Like Chaos o'er creation, uncreating ; 
An hundred tribes nourished on strange religions 
And lawless slaveries, — down the aerial regions 140 

Of the white Alps, desolating, 
Famished wolves that bide no waiting, 
Blotting the glowing footsteps of old glory, 
Trampling our columned cities into dust, 

Their dull and savage lust MS 

On Beauty's corse to sickness satiating — 
They come ! The fields they tread look black and hoary 
With fire — from their red feet the streams run gory ! 

EPODE II. j3. 

Great Spirit, deepest Love ! 

Which rulest, and dost move * 150 

All things which live and are, within the Italian shore ; 

Who spreadest heaven around it. 

Whose woods, rocks, waves, surround it, 
Who sittest in thy star, o'er Ocean's western floor ; 
Spirit of beauty ! at whose soft command i55 

The sunbeams and the showers distil its foison 

From the Earth's bosom chill ; 
O bid those beams be each a blinding brand 

Of lightning ! bid those showers be dews of poison ! 

Bid the Earth's plenty kill ! 160 

Bid thy bright Heaven above. 

Whilst light and darkness bound it, 

Be their tomb who planned 

To make it ours and thine ! 



GOOD NIGHT. 219 

Or, with thine harmonizing ardours fill 165 

And raise thy sons, as o'er the prone horizon 
Thy lamp feeds every twilight wave with fire — 
Be man's high hope and unextinct desire 
The instrument to work thy will divine ! 

Then clouds from sunbeams, antelopes from leopards, 170 
And frowns and fears from Thee, 
Would not more swiftly flee 

Than Celtic wolves from the Ausonian shepherds. — 
Whatever, Spirit, from thy starry shrine 

Thou yieldest or withholdest, Oh let be 175 

This city of thy worship ever free ! 

August 11-21, 1820. 



GOOD NIGHT. 



Good night ? ah ! no ; the hour is ill 
Which severs those it should unite ; 

Let us remain together still, 
Then it will be good night. 



How can I call the lone night good. 

Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight ? 

Be it not said, thought, understood. 
Then it will be good night. 



To hearts which near each other move 
From evening close to morning light, 

The night is good ; because, my love. 

They never say good night. 1820. 



SELECTED POEMS. 

THE WORLD'S WANDERERS. 

I. 

Tell me, thou star, whose wings of light 
Speed thee in thy fiery flight, 
In what cavern of the night 

Will thy pinions close now? 



Tell me, moon, thou pale and gray 5 

Pilgrim of heaven's homeless way. 
In what depth of night or day 

Seekest thou repose now ? 

III. 

Weary wind, who wanderest 

Like the world's rejected guest, lo 

Hast thou still some secret nest 

On the tree or billow ? 

1820. 



TO THE MOON. 

Art thou pale for weariness 
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth, 

Wandering companionless 
Among the stars that have a different birth, - 
And ever changing, like a joyless eye 
That finds no object worth its constancy? 



1820. 



TIME LONG PAST.— SONNET. 221 



TIME LONG PAST. 



Like the ghost of a dear friend dead 

Is Time long past. 
A tone which is now forever fled, 
A hope which is now forever past, 
A love so sweet it could not last, 

Was Time long past. 



There were sweet dreams in the night 

Of Time long past : 
And, was it sadness or delight. 
Each day a shadow onward cast 
Which made us wish it yet might last — 
That Time long past. 



There is regret, almost remorse, 

For Time long past. 

'Tis like a child's beloved corse 15 

A father watches, till at last 

Beauty is like remembrance, cast 

From Time long past. 

1820. 



SONNET. 



Ye hasten to the grave ! What seek ye there, 
Ye restless thoughts and busy purposes 
Of the idle brain, which the world's livery wear ? 
O thou quick heart which pantest to possess 
All that pale Expectation feigneth fair ! 



2 22 SELECTED POEMS. 

Thou vainly curious mind which wouldest guess 

Whence thou didst come, and whither thou must go, 

And all that never yet was known would know — 

Oh, whither hasten ye, that thus ye press, 

With such swift feet life's green and pleasant path, 

Seeking, alike from happiness and woe, 

A refuge in the cavern of gray death ? 

O heart, and mind, and thoughts, what thing do you 

Hope to inherit in the grave below ? 



DIRGE FOR THE YEAR. 

Orphan hours, the year is dead,- 
Come and sigh, come and weep 

Merry hours, smile instead, 
For the year is but asleep. 

See, it smiles as it is sleeping. 

Mocking your untimely weeping. 



As an earthquake rocks a corse 

In its coffin in the clay. 
So White Winter, that rough nurse, 

Rocks the death-cold year to-day ; 
Solemn hours ! wail aloud 
For your mother in her shroud. 



As the wild air stirs and sways 

The tree-swung cradle of a child. 
So the breath of these rude days '5 

Rocks the year : — be calm and mild, 



TIME.— TO NIGHT 223 

Xrembling hours, — she will arise 
With new love within her eyes. 



January gray is here, 

Like a sexton by her grave ; 
February bears the bier, 

March with grief doth howl and rave, 
And April weeps — but, O, ye hours, 
Follow with May's fairest flowers. 
January i, 182 1. 



TIME. 



Unfathomable Sea ! whose waves are years, 

Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe 
Are brackish with the salt of human tears ! 

Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow 
Claspest the limits of mortality ! 

And sick of prey, yet howling on for more, 
Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore ; 

Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm, 
Who shall put forth on thee, 
Unfathomable Sea? 



TO NIGHT. 



Swiftly walk o'er the western wave. 

Spirit of Night ! 
Out of the misty eastern cave, 
Where all the long and lone daylight. 



2 24 SELECTED POEMS. 

Thou wo vest dreams of joy and fear, 
Which make thee terrible and dear, - 
Swift be thy flight ! 



Wrap thy form in a mantle gray. 

Star in-wrought ! 
Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day ; lo 

Kiss her until she be wearied out, 
Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land, 
Touching all with thine opiate wand — 

Come, long sought! 



When I arose and saw the dawn, 15 

I sighed for thee ; 
When light rode high, and the dew was gone, 
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree. 
And the weary Day turned to his rest, 
Lingering like an unloved guest, 20 

I sighed for thee. 

IV. 

Thy brother Death came, and cried, 

Wouldst thou me? 
Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed. 
Murmured like a noon-tide bee, 25 

Shall I nestle near thy side ? 
Wouldst thou me? — And I replied. 

No, not thee ! 



Death will come when thou art dead. 

Soon, too soon — 3° 



FROM THE ARABIC: AN IMITATION. 225 

Sleep will come when thou art lied ; 
Of neither would I ask the boon 
I ask of thee, beloved Night — 
Swift be thine approaching flight, 

Come soon, soon ! 35 

1821. 



FROM THE ARABIC : AN IMITATION. 



My faint spirit was sitting in the light 
Of thy looks, my love ; 
It panted for thee like the hind at noon 
For the brooks, my love. 
Thy barb whose hoofs outspeed the tempest's flight 
Bore thee far from me ; 
My heart, for my weak feet were weary soon, 
Did companion thee. 



Ah ! fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed, 
Or the death they bear. 
The heart which tender thought clothes like a dove 
With the wings of care ; 
In the battle, in the darkness, in the need. 
Shall mine cling to thee. 
Nor claim one smile for all the comfort, love, 
It may bring to thee. 

1821. 



2 26 SELECTED POEMS. 



TO EMILIA VIVIANI. 

Madonna, wherefore hast thou sent to me 

Sweet basil and mignonette, 
Embleming love and health, which never yet 
In the same wreath might be? 

Alas, and they are wet ! 
Is it with thy kisses or thy tears? 

For never rain or dew 

Such fragrance drew 
From plant or flower — the very doubt endears 

My sadness ever new, 
The sighs I breathe, the tears I shed for thee. 

Send the stars light, but send not love to me. 

In whom love ever made 
Health like a heap of embers soon to fade. 

March, 1821. 



EPIPSYCHIDION. 

VERSES ADDRESSED TO THE NOBLE AND 
UNFORTUNATE LADY, 

EMILIA V , 

NOW IMPRISONED IN THE CONVENT OF . 

L'anima amante si slancia fuori del create, e si crea nel infinito un Mondo 
tutto per essa, diverse assai da questo oscuro e pauroso baratro. 

Her own words. 
182I. 



My Song, I fear that thou wilt find but few 
Who fitly shall conceive thy reasoning, 
Of such hard matter dost thou entertain ; 
Whence, if by misadventure, chance should bring 
Thee to base company, (as chance may do,) 
Quite unaware of what thou dost contain, 
I prithee, comfort thy sweet self again, 
My last delight ! tell them that they are dull, 
And bid them own that thou art beautiful. 



EPIPSYCHIDION. 



ADVERTIZEMENT. 

The Writer of the following Lines died at Florence, as he 
was preparing for a voyage to one of the wildest of the 
Sporades, which he had bought, and where he had fitted up 
the ruins of an old building, and where it was his hope to 
have realized a scheme of life, suited perhaps to that happier 5 
and better world of which he is now an inhabitant, but hardly 
practicable in this. His life was singular ; less on account of 
the romantic vicissitudes which diversified it, than the ideal 
tinge which it received from his own character and feelings. 
The present Poem, like the Vita Nuova of Dante, is sufficiently 10 
intelligible to a certain class of readers without a matter-of-fact 
history of the circumstances to which it relates ; and to a 
certain other class it must ever remain incomprehensible, from 
a defect of a common organ of perception for the ideas of 
which it treats. Not but that, gran vergogna sarebbe a cohii^ i 5 
che riinasse cosa sotio veste di figura^ di colore rettoi'ico : e 
domandato non sapesse demidare le sue parole da cotal veste ^ 
in guisa che avessero verace uitendimento. 

The present poem appears to have been intended by the 
Writer as the dedication to some longer one. The stanza on 20 
the opposite page is almost a literal translation from Dante's 
famous Canzone 

Voi^ cJi' intendendo, il terzo del movete^ etc. 

The presumptuous application of the concluding lines to his 
own composition will raise a smile at the expense of my 25 
unfortunate friend : be it a smile not of contempt, but pity. 

S. 



230 SELECTED POEMS. 



EPIPSYCHIDION. 

Sweet Spirit ! Sister of that orphan one, 
Whose empire is the name thou weepest on, 
In my heart's temple I suspend to thee 
These votive wreaths of withered memory. 

Poor captive bird ! who, from thy narrow cage, 5 

Pourest such music, that it might assuage 
The rugged hearts of those who prisoned thee, 
Were they not deaf to all sweet melody ; 
This song shall be thy rose : its petals pale 
Are dead, indeed, my adored Nightingale ! 10 

But soft and fragrant is the faded blossom. 
And it has no thorn left to wound thy bosom. 

High, spirit-winged Heart ! who dost for ever 
Beat thine unfeeling bars with vain endeavour, 
Till those bright plumes of thought, in which arrayed 15 

It over-soared this low and worldly shade, 
Lie shattered ; and thy panting, wounded breast 
Stains with dear blood its unmaternal nest ! 
I weep vain tears : blood would less bitter be. 
Yet poured forth gladlier, could it profit thee. 20 

Seraph of Heaven ! too gentle to be human. 
Veiling beneath that radiant form of Woman 
All that is insupportable in thee 
Of light, and love, and immortality ! 

Sweet Benediction in the eternal Curse ! 25 

Veiled Glory of this lampless Universe ! 
Thou Moon beyond the clouds ! Thou living Form 
Among the Dead ! Thou Star above the Storm ! 



EPIPS YC HID ION. 2 3 1 

Thou Wonder, and thou Beauty, and thou Terror ! 

Thou Harmony of Nature's art ! Thou Mirror 3° 

In whom, as in the splendour of the Sun, 

All shapes look glorious which thou gazest on ! 

Aye, even the dim words which obscure thee now 

Flash, lightning-like, with unaccustomed glow ; 

I pray thee that thou blot from this sad song 35 

All of its much mortality and wrong, 

With those clear drops, which start like sacred dew 

From the twin lights thy sweet soul darkens through, 

Weeping, till sorrow becomes ecstasy : 

Then smile on it, so that it may not die. 4° 

I never thought before my death to see 
Youth's vision thus made perfect. Emily, 
I love thee ; though the world by no thin name 
Will hide that love from its unvalued shame. 
Would we two had been twins of the same mother ! 45 

Or, that the name my heart lent to another 
Could be a sister's bond for her and thee. 
Blending two beams of one eternity ! 
Yet were one lawful and the other true. 
These names, though dear, could paint not, as is due, 5° 
How beyond refuge I am thine. Ah me ! 
I am not thine : I am a part of thee. 

Sweet Lamp ! my moth-like Muse has burnt its wings ; 
Or, like a dying swan who soars and sings. 
Young Love should teach Time, in his own gray style, 55 
All that thou art. Art thou not void of guile, 
A lovely soul formed to be bless'd and bless? 
A well of sealed and secret happiness. 
Whose waters like blithe light and music are, 
Vanquishing dissonance and gloom .-' A Star 6o 



232 SELECTED POEMS. 

Which moves not in the moving Heavens, alone ? 

A smile amid dark frowns ? a gentle tone 

Amid rude voices ? a beloved light ? 

A Solitude, a Refuge, a Delight? 

A Lute, which those whom love has taught to play 65 

Make music on, to soothe the roughest day 

And lull fond grief asleep ? a buried treasure ? 

A cradle of young thoughts of wingless pleasure ? 

A violet-shrouded grave of Woe ? — I measure 

The world of fancies, seeking one like thee, 70 

And find — alas ! mine own infirmity. 

She met me, Stranger, upon life's rough way. 
And lured me towards sweet Death ; as Night by Day, 
Winter by Spring, or Sorrow by swift Hope, 
Led into light, life, peace. An antelope, 75 

In the suspended impulse of its lightness, 
Were less aetherially light : the brightness 
Of her divinest presence trembles through 
Her limbs, as underneath a cloud of dew 
Embodied in the windless Heaven of June 80 

Amid the splendour-winged stars, the Moon 
Burns, inextinguishably beautiful : 
And from her lips, as from a hyacinth full 
Of honey-dew, a liquid murmur drops, 

KiUing th^ sense with passion ; sweet as stops 85 

Of planetary music heard in trance. 
In her mild lights the starry spirits dance. 
The sun-beams of those wells which ever leap 
Under the lightnings of the soul — too deep 
For the brief fathom-line of thought or sense. 9° 

The glory of her being, issuing thence. 
Stains the dead, blank, cold air with a warm shade 
Of unentangled intermixture, made 



EFIPS YC HID ION. 233 

By Love, of light and motion : one intense 

Diffusion, one serene Omnipresence, 95 

Whose flowing outlines mingle in their flowing 

Around her cheeks and utmost fingers glowing 

With the unintermitted blood, which there 

Quivers, (as in a fleece of snow-like air 

The crimson pulse of living morning quiver,) 100 

Continuously prolonged, and ending never, 

Till they are lost, and in that Beauty furled 

Which penetrates and clasps and fills the world ; 

Scarce visible from extreme loveliness. 

Warm fragrance seems to fall from her light dress 105 

And her loose hair ; and where some heavy tress 

The air of her own speed has disentwined. 

The sweetness seems to satiate the faint wind ; 

And in the soul a wild odour is felt, 

Beyond the sense, like fiery dews that melt no 

Into the bosom of a frozen bud. 

See where she stands ! a mortal shape indued 

With love and life and light and deity, 

And motion which may change but cannot die ; 

An image of some bright Eternity ; 115 

A shadow of some golden dream ; a Splendour 

Leaving the third sphere pilotless ; a tender 

Reflexion of the eternal Moon of Love 

Under whose motions life's dull billows move ; 

A Metaphor of Spring and Youth and Morning; 120 

A Vision like incarnate April, warning. 

With smiles and tears. Frost the Anatomy 

Into his summer grave. 

Ah, woe is me ! 
What have I dared .'' where am I lifted "i how 
Shall I descend, and perish not? I know 125 



234 SELECTED POEMS. 

That Love makes all things equal : I have heard 
By mine own heart this joyous truth averred : 
The spirit of the worm beneath the sod 
In love and worship blends itself with God. 

Spouse! Sister! Angel! Pilot of the Fate 130 

Whose course has been so starless ! O too late 
Beloved ! O too soon adored, by me ! 
For in the fields of immortality 
My spirit should at first have worshipped thine, 
A divine presence in a place divine ; 135 

Or should have moved beside it on this earth, 
A shadow of that substance, from its birth ; 
But not as now: — I love thee ; yes, I feel 
That on the fountain of my heart a seal 
Is set, to keep. its waters pure and bright 140 

For thee, since in those tears thou hast delight. 
We — are we not formed, as notes of music are, 
For one another, though dissimilar ; 
Such difference without discord, as can make 
Those sweetest sounds, in which all spirits shake 145 

As trembling leaves in a continuous air ? 

Thy wisdom speaks in me, and bids me dare 
Beacon the rocks on which high hearts are wrecked. 
I never was attached to that great sect. 

Whose doctrine is, that each one should select 150 

Out of the crowd a mistress or a friend, 
And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend 
To cold oblivion, though 't is in the code 
Of modern morals, and the beaten road 
Which those poor slaves with weary footsteps tread, 155 

Who travel to their home among the dead 
By the broad highway of the world, and so 



EPIPSYCHIDION. 235 

With one chained friend, perhaps a jealous foe, 
The dreariest and the longest journey go. 

True Love in this differs from gold and clay, 160 

That to divide is not to take away. 
Love is like understanding, that grows bright, 
Gazing on many truths; 'tis like thy light, 
Imagination ! which from earth and sky. 
And from the depths of human phantasy, 165 

As from a thousand prisms and mirrors, fills 
The Universe with glorious beams, and kills 
Error, the worm, with many a sun-like arrow 
Of its reverberated lightning. Narrow 

The heart that loves, the brain that contemplates, 170 

The life that wears, the spirit that creates 
One object, and one form, and builds thereby 
A sepulchre for its eternity. 

Mind from its object differs most in this : 
Evil from good ; misery from happiness ; 175 

The baser from the nobler ; the impure 
And frail, from what is clear and must endure. 
If you divide suffering and dross, you may 
Diminish till it is consumed away ; 

If you divide pleasure and love and thought, 180 

Each part exceeds the whole ; and we know not 
How much, while any yet remains unshared, 
Of pleasure may be gained, of sorrow spared : 
This truth is that deep well, whence sages draw 
The unenvied light of hope ; the eternal law 185 

By which those live, to whom this world of life 
Is as a garden ravaged, and whose strife 
Tills for the promise of a later birth 
The wilderness of this Elysian earth. 



236 SELECTED POEMS. 

There was a Being whom my spirit oft 190 

Met on its visioned wanderings, far aloft, 
In the clear golden prime of my youth's dawn, 
Upon the fairy isles of sunny lawn, 
Amid the enchanted mountains, and the caves 
Of divine sleep, and on the air-like waves 195 

Of wonder-level dream, whose tremulous floor 
Paved her light steps ; — on an imagined shore. 
Under the gray beak of some promontory 
She met me, robed in such exceeding glory, 
That I beheld her not. In solitudes 200 

Her voice came to me through the whispering woods, 
And from the fountains, and the odours deep 
Of flowers, which, like lips murmuring in their sleep 
Of the sweet kisses which had lulled them there. 
Breathed but of her to the enamoured air ; 205 

And from the breezes whether low or loud. 
And from the rain of every passing cloud, 
And from the singing of the summer-birds. 
And from all sounds, all silence. In the words 
Of antique verse and high romance, — in form, 210 

Sound, colour — in whatever checks that Storm 
Which with the shattered present chokes the past ; 
And in that best philosophy, whose taste 
Makes this cold common hell, our life, a doom 
As glorious as a fiery martyrdom ; 215 

Her Spirit was the harmony of truth. — 

Then, from the caverns of my dreamy youth 
I sprang, as one sandalled with plumes of fire, 
And towards the loadstar of my one desire, 
I flitted, like a dizzy moth, whose flight 220 

Is as a dead leaf's in the owlet light. 
When it would seek in Hesper's setting sphere 



EPIPSYCHIDION. 237 

A radiant death, a fiery sepulchre, 

As if it were a lamp of earthly flame. — 

But She, whom prayers or tears then could not tame, 225 

Passed, like a God throned on a winged planet, 

Whose burning plumes to tenfold swiftness fan it, 

Into the dreary cone of our life's shade ; 

And as a man with mighty loss dismayed, 

I would have followed, though the grave between 230 

Yawned like a gulph whose spectres are unseen : 

When a voice said : — " O Thou of hearts the weakest, 

'* The phantom is beside thee whom thou seekest." 

Then I — "where ? " the world's echo answered "where ! " 

And in that silence, and in my despair, 235 

I questioned every tongueless wind that flew 

Over my tower of mourning, if it knew 

Whither 't was fled, this soul out of my soul ; 

And murmured names and spells which have control 

Over the sightless tyrants of our fate ; 240 

But neither prayer nor verse could dissipate 

The night which closed on her ; nor uncreate 

That world within this Chaos, mine and me, 

Of which she was the veiled Divinity, 

The world I say of thoughts that worshipped her : 245 

And therefore I went forth, with hope and fear 

And every gentle passion sick to death, 

Feeding my course with expectation's breath. 

Into the wintry forest of our life ; 

And struggling through its error with vain strife, 250 

And stumbling in my weakness and my haste, 

And half bewildered by new forms, I passed 

Seeking among those untaught foresters 

If I could find one form resembling hers. 

In which she might have masked herself from me. 255 

There, — One, whose voice was venomed melody. 



238 SELECTED POEMS. 

Sate by a well, under blue night-shade bowers ; 

The breath of her false mouth was hke faint flowers, 

Her touch was as electric poison, — flame 

Out of her looks into my vitals came, 260 

And from her living cheeks and bosom flew 

A killing air, which pierced like honey-dew 

Into the core of my green heart, and lay 

Upon its leaves ; until, as hair grown gray 

O'er a young brow, they hid its unblown prime 265 

With ruins of unseasonable time. 

In many mortal forms I rashly sought 
The shadow of that idol of my thought. 
And some were fair — but beauty dies away: 
Others were wise — but honeyed words betray: 270 

And One was true — oh ! why not true to me ? 
Then, as a hunted deer that could not flee, 
I turned upon my thoughts, and stood at bay. 
Wounded and weak and panting ; the cold day 
Trembled, for pity of my strife and pain. 275 

When, like a noon-day dawn, there shone again 
Deliverance. One stood on my path who seemed 
As like the glorious shape which I had dreamed. 
As is the Moon, whose changes ever run 
Into themselves, to the eternal Sun ; 280 

The cold chaste Moon, the Queen of Heaven's bright isles. 
Who makes all beautiful on which she smiles. 
That wandering shrine of soft yet icy flame 
Which ever is transformed, yet still the same. 
And warms not but illumines. Young and fair 285 

As the descended Spirit of that sphere, 
She hid me, as the Moon may hide the night 
From its own darkness, until all was bright 
Between the Heaven and Earth of my calm mind, 



EPIPSYCHIDTON. 239 

And, as a cloud charioted by the wind, 290 

She led me to a cave in that wild place. 

And sate beside me, with her downward face 

Illumining my slumbers, like the Moon 

Waxing and waning o'er Endymion. 

And I was laid asleep, spirit and limb, 295 

And all my being became bright or dim 

As the Moon's image in a summer sea, 

According as she smiled or frowned on me ; 

And there I lay, within a chaste cold bed : 

Alas, I then was nor alive nor dead : — 300 

For at her silver voice came Death and Life, 

Unmindful each of their accustomed strife. 

Masked like twin babes, a sister and a brother. 

The wandering hopes of one abandoned mother. 

And through the cavern without wings they flew, 305 

And cried " Away, he is not of our crew." 

I wept, and though it be a dream, I weep. 

What storms then shook the ocean of my sleep. 
Blotting that Moon, whose pale and waning lips 
Then shrank as in the sickness of eclipse ; — 310 

And how my soul was as a lampless sea. 
And who was then its Tempest ; and when She, 
The Planet of that hour, was quenched, what frost 
Crept o'er those waters, till from coast to coast 
The moving billows of my being fell 315 

Into a death of ice, immovable ; — 
And then — what earthquakes made it gape and split, 
The white Moon smiling all the while on it, 
These words conceal : — If not, each word would be 
The key of staunchless tears. Weep not for me ! 320 

At length, into the obscure Forest came 
The Vision I had sought through grief and shame. 



2 40 SELECTED POEMS. 

Athwart that wintry wilderness of thorns 

Flashed from her motion splendour like the Morn's, 

And from her presence life was radiated 325 

Through the gray earth and branches bare and dead ; 

So that her way was paved, and roofed above 

With flowers as soft as thoughts of budding love ; 

And music from her respiration spread 

Like light, — all other sounds were penetrated 33° 

By the small, still, sweet spirit of that sound, 

So that the savage winds hung mute around ; 

And odours warm and fresh fell from her hair 

Dissolving the dull cold in the frore air : 

Soft as an Incarnation of the Sun, 335 

When light is changed to love, this glorious One 

Floated into the cavern where I lay. 

And called my Spirit, and the dreaming clay 

Was lifted by the thing that dreamed below 

As smoke by fire, and in her beauty's glow 34° 

I stood, and felt the dawn of my long night 

Was penetrating me with living light : 

I knew it was the Vision veiled from me 

So many years — that it was Emily. 

Twin Spheres of light who rule this passive Earth, 345 
This world of love, this me; and into birth 
Awaken all its fruits and flowers, and dart 
Magnetic might into its central heart ; 
And lift its billows and its mists, and guide 
By everlasting laws each wind and tide 35° 

To its fit cloud, and its appointed cave ; 
And lull its storms, each in the craggy grave 
Which was its cradle, luring to faint bowers 
The armies of the rainbow-winged showers ; 
And, as those married lights, which from the towers 355 



EPIFS YC HID ION. 2 4 1 

Of Heaven look forth and fold the wandering globe 

In liquid sleep and splendour, as a robe ; 

And all their many-mingled influence blend, 

If equal, yet unlike, to one sweet end ; — 

So ye, bright regents, with alternate sway 360 

Govern my sphere of being, night and day ! 

Thou, not disdaining even a borrowed might ; 

Thou, not eclipsing a remoter light ; 

And, through the shadow of the seasons three. 

From Spring to Autumn's sere maturity, 3^5 

Light it into the Winter of the tomb. 

Where it may ripen to a brighter bloom. 

Thou too, O Comet beautiful and fierce. 

Who drew the heart of this frail Universe 

Towards thine own ; till, wrecked in that convulsion, 37o 

Alternating attraction and repulsion. 

Thine went astray and that was rent in twain ; 

Oh, float into our azure heaven again ! 

Be there love's folding-star at thy return ; 

The living Sun will feed thee from its urn 37 5 

Of golden fire ; the Moon will veil her horn 

In thy last smiles ; adoring Even and Morn 

Will worship thee with incense of calm breath 

And lights and shadows ; as the star of Death 

And Birth is worshipped by those sisters wild 380 

Called Hope and Fear — upon the heart are piled 

Their offerings, — of this sacrifice divine 

A World shall be the altar. 

Lady mine. 
Scorn not these flowers of thought, the fading birth 
Which from its heart of hearts that plant puts forth 385 

Whose fruit, made perfect by thy sunny eyes. 
Will be as of the trees of Paradise. 



2 42 SELECTED POEMS. 

The day is come, and thou wilt fly with me. 
To whatsoe'er of dull mortality 

Is mine, remain a vestal sister still ; 39° 

To the intense, the deep, the imperishable, 
Not mine but me, henceforth be thou united 
Even as a bride, delighting and delighted. 
The hour is come \- — the destined Star has risen 
Which shall descend upon a vacant prison. 395 

The walls are high, the gates are strong, thick set 
The sentinels — but true love never yet 
Was thus constrained : it overleaps all fence : 
Like lightning, with invisible violence 

Piercing its continents ; like Heaven's free breath, 400 

Which he who grasps can hold not ; liker Death, 
Who rides upon a thought, and makes his v/ay 
Through temple, tower, and palace, and the array 
Of arms : more strength has Love than he or they; 
For it can burst his charnel, and make free 405 

The limbs in chains, the heart in agony, 
The soul in dust and chaos. 

Emily, 
A ship is floating in the harbour now, 
A wind is hovering o'er the mountain's brow^; 
There is a path on the sea's azure floor, 410 

No keel has ever ploughed that path before ; 
The halcyons brood around the foamless isles ; 
The treacherous Ocean has forsworn its wiles ; 
The merry mariners are bold and free : 

Say, my heart's sister, wilt thou sail with me? 415 

Our bark is as an albatross, whose nest 
Is a far Eden of the purple East ; 
And we between her wings will sit, while Night 
And Day, and Storm, and Calm, pursue their flight, 
Our ministers, along the boundless Sea, 420 



EPIPS YC HI DION. 2 43 

Treading each other's heels, unheededly. 

It is an isle under Ionian skies, 

Beautiful as a wreck of Paradise ; 

And, for the harbours are not safe and good, 

This land would have remained a solitude 425 

But for some pastoral people native there, 

Who from the Elysian, clear, and golden air 

Draw the last spirit of the age of gold, — 

Simple and spirited, innocent and bold. 

The blue ^gean girds this chosen home, 43° 

With ever-changing sound and light and foam, 

Kissing the sifted sands and caverns hoar ; 

And all the winds wandering along the shore 

Undulate with the undulating tide : 

There are thick woods where sylvan forms abide ; 435 

And many a fountain, rivulet, and pond, 

As clear as elemental diamond. 

Or serene morning air ; and far beyond. 

The mossy tracks made by the goats and deer 

(Which the rough shepherd treads but once a year,) 440 

Pierce into glades, caverns, and bowers, and halls 

Built round with ivy, which the waterfalls 

Illumining, with sound that never fails 

Accompanying the noon-day nightingales ; 

And all the place is peopled with sweet airs ; 445 

The light clear element which the isle wears 

Is heavy with the scent of lemon-flowers, 

Which floats like mist laden with unseen showers 

And falls upon the eyelids like faint sleep ; 

And from the moss violets and jonquils peep, 45° 

And dart their arrowy odour through the brain 

Till you might faint with that delicious pain. 

And every motion, odour, beam, and tone, 

With that deep music is in unison : 



244 SELECTED POEMS. 

Which is a soul within the soul — they seem 455 

Like echoes of an antenatal dream. — 

It is an isle 'twixt Heaven, Air, Earth, and Sea, 

Cradled, and hung in clear tranquillity; 

Bright as that wandering Eden Lucifer, 

Washed by the soft blue Oceans of young air. 460 

It is a favoured place. Famine or Blight, 

Pestilence, War and Earthquake, never light 

Upon its mountain-peaks ; blind vultures, they 

Sail onward far upon their fatal way : 

The winged storms, chaunting their thunder-psalm 465 

To other lands, leave azure chasms of calm 

Over this isle, or weep themselves in dew, 

From which its fields and woods ever renew 

Their green and golden immortality. 

And from the sea there rise, and from the sky 470 

There fall, clear exhalations, soft and bright. 

Veil after veil, each hiding some delight. 

Which Sun or Moon or zephyr draw aside, 

Till the isle's beauty, like a naked bride 

Glowing at once with love and loveliness, 475 

Blushes and trembles at its own excess : 

Yet, like a buried lamp, a Soul no less 

Burns in the heart of this delicious isle. 

An atom of th' Eternal, whose own smile 

Unfolds itself, and may be felt, not seen, 480 

O'er the gray rocks, blue waves, and forests green. 

Filling their bare and void interstices. — 

But the chief marvel of the wilderness 

Is a lone dwelling, built by whom or how 

None of the rustic island-people know : 485 

'T is not a tower of strength, though with its height 

It overtops the woods ; but, for delight, 

Some wise and tender Ocean-King, ere crime 



EPIPS YC III DION. 245 

Had been invented, in the world's young prime, 

Reared it, a wonder of that simple time, 49° 

An envy of the isles, a pleasure-house 

Made sacred to his sister and his spouse. 

It scarce seems now a wreck of human art. 

But, as it were, Titanic ; in the heart 

Of Earth having assumed its form, then grown 495 

Out of the mountains, from the living stone, 

Lifting itself in caverns light and high : 

For all the antique and learned imagery 

Has been erased, and in the place of it 

The ivy and the wild-vine interknit 500 

The volumes of their many-twining stems ; 

Parasite flowers illume with dewy gems 

The lampless halls, and when they fade, the sky 

Peeps through their winter-woof of tracery 

With Moon-light patches, or star atoms keen, 505 

Or fragments of the day's intense serene ; — 

Working mosaic on their Parian floors. 

And, day and night, aloof, from the high towers 

And terraces, the Earth and Ocean seem 

To sleep in one another's arms, and dream 5^° 

Of waves, flowers, clouds, woods, rocks, and all that we 

Read in their smiles, and call reality. 

This isle and house are mine, and I have vowed 
Thee to be lady of the solitude. — 

And I have fitted up some chambers there 5^5 

Looking towards the golden Eastern air. 
And level with the living winds, which flow 
Like waves above the living waves below. — 
I have sent books and music there, and all 
Those instruments with which high spirits call 520 

The future from its cradle, and the past 



246 SELECTED POEMS. 

Out of its grave, and make the present last 

In thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot die, 

Folded within their own eternity. 

Our simple life wants little, and true taste 5^5 

Hires not the pale drudge Luxury, to waste 

The scene it would adorn, and therefore, still, 

Nature, with all her children, haunts the hill. 

The ring-dove, in the embowering ivy, yet 

Keeps up her love-lament, and the owls flit 53° 

Round the evening tower, and the young stars glance 

Between the quick bats in their twilight dance ; 

The spotted deer bask in the fresh moon-light 

Before our gate, and the slow, silent night 

Is measured by the pants of their calm sleep. 535 

Be this our home in life, and when years heap 

Their withered hours, like leaves, on our decay, 

Let us become the over-hanging day. 

The living soul of this Elysian isle. 

Conscious, inseparable, one. Meanwhile 540 

We two will rise, and sit, and walk together. 

Under the roof of blue Ionian weather. 

And wander in the meadows, or ascend 

The mossy mountains, where the blue heavens bend 

With lightest winds, to touch their paramour ; 545 

Or linger, where the pebble-paven shore. 

Under the quick, faint kisses of the sea 

Trembles and sparkles as with ecstasy, — 

Possessing and possessed by all that is 

Within that calm circumference of bliss, 550 

And by each other, till to love and live 

Be one : — or, at the noontide hour, arrive 

Where some old cavern hoar seems yet to keep 

The moonlight of the expired night asleep, 

Through which the awakened day can never peep ; 555 



EPIPS YCHIDION. 247 

A veil for our seclusion, close as Night's, 

Where secure sleep may kill thine innocent lights ; 

Sleep, the fresh dew of languid love, the rain 

Whose drops quench kisses till they burn again. 

And we will talk, until thought's melody 560 

Become too sweet for utterance, and it die 

In words, to live again in looks, which dart 

With thrilling tone into the voiceless heart. 

Harmonizing silence without a sound. 

Our breath shall intermix, our bosoms bound, 565 

And our veins beat together ; and our lips. 

With other eloquence than words, eclipse 

The soul that burns between them ; and the wells 

Which boil under our being's inmost cells. 

The fountains of our deepest life, shall be 57° 

Confused in passion's golden purity. 

As mountain-springs under the morning Sun. 

We shall become the same, we shall be one 

Spirit within two frames, oh ! wherefore two ? 

One passion in twin-hearts, which grows and grew, 575 

Till like two meteors of expanding flame. 

Those spheres instinct with it become the same 

Touch, mingle, are transfigured ; ever still 

Burning, yet ever inconsumable : 

In one another's substance finding food, 580 

Like flames too pure and light and unimbued 

To nourish their bright lives with baser prey. 

Which point to Heaven and cannot pass away : 

One hope within two wills, one will beneath 

Two overshadowing minds, one Hfe, one death, 585 

One Heaven, one Hell, one immortality. 

And one annihilation. Woe is me ! 

The winged words on which my soul would pierce 

Into the height of love's rare Universe 



248 SELECTED POEMS, 

Are chains of lead around its flight of lire. — 590 

I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire ! 



Weak Verses, go, kneel at your Sovereign's feet, 
And say : — " We are the masters of thy slave ; 
"What wouldest thou with us and ours and thine ? " 
Then call your sisters from Oblivion's cave, 595 

All singing loud : " Love's very pain is sweet, 
" But its reward is in the world divine 
"Which, if not here, it builds beyond the grave." 
So shall ye live when I am there. Then haste 
Over the hearts of men, until ye meet 600 

Marina, Vanna, Primus, and the rest. 
And bid them love each other and be bless'd : 
And leave the troop which errs, and which reproves. 
And come and be my guest, — for I am Love's. 



TO 



Music, when soft voices die, 
Vibrates in the memory — 
Odours, when sweet violets sicken. 
Live within the sense they quicken. 
Rose-leaves, when the rose is dead, 
Are heaped for the beloved's bed ; 
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gon( 
Love itself shall slumber on. 



SONG. 249 



SONG. 



Rarely, rarely, comest thou. 

Spirit of Delight ! 
Wherefore hast thou left me now 

Many a day and night ? 
Many a weary night and day 
'T is since thou art fled away. 



How shall ever one like me 

Win thee back again ? 
With the joyous and the free 

Thou wilt scoff at pain. 
Spirit false ! thou hast forgot 
All but those who need thee not. 



As a lizard with the shade 

Of a trembling leaf, 
Thou with sorrow art dismayed ; 

Even the sighs of grief 
Reproach thee, that thou art not near, 
And reproach thou wilt not hear. 



Let me set my mournful ditty 

To a merry measure. 
Thou wilt never come for pity, 

Thou wilt come for pleasure. 
Pity then will cut away 
Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay. 



250 SELECTED FORMS. 



I love all that thou lovest, ^ 

Spirit of Delight ! 
The fresh Earth in new leaves dressed, 

And the starry night ; 
Autumn evening, and the morn 
When the golden mists are born. 3° 



I love snow, and all the forms 

Of the radiant frost ; 
I love waves, and winds, and storms, 

Every thing almost 
Which is Nature's, and may be 35 

Untainted by man's misery. 



I love tranquil solitude, 

And such society 
As is quiet, wise and good ; 

Between thee and me 4© 

What difference? but thou dost possess 
The things I seek, not love them less. 



I love Love — though he has wings. 

And like light can flee. 
But above all other things, 45 

Spirit, I love thee — 
Thou art love and life ! O come, 
Make once more my heart thy home. 



MUTABILITY. 251 

MUTABILITY. 



The flower that smiles to-day 
To-morrow dies ; 

All that we wish to stay 

Tempts and then flies. 

What is this world's delight? 

Lightning that mocks the night, 
Brief even as bright. 



Virtue, how frail it is ! 

Friendship how rare ! 
Love, how it sells poor bliss 
For proud despair ! 
But we, though soon they fall, 
Survive their joy, and all 
Which ours we call. 



Whilst skies are blue and bright 
Whilst flowers are gay. 

Whilst eyes that change ere night 
Make glad the day ; 

Whilst yet the calm hours creep, 

Dream thou^ — and from thy sleep 
Then wake to weep. 



ADON AIS: 

AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JOHN KEATS, AUTHOR 
OF ENDYMION, HYPERION, &c. 

Nvp 8^ davihv Xd/jLireis ea-jrepoi iv tpdi/x^pois. 



[821. 



PREFACE. 

^dp/xaKOv ^Xde, Btoj?', totI cop ard/xa, (pap/naKov eides • 
IlaJs T€v rots xaXe(rcrt iroTidpafj-e, kovk eyXvKcipdr} ; 
T/s 5^ ^poTos TocraovTov dpdfiepos ^ KCpdcrat toi, 
"H dovpat XdXeoPTi to (pdpjxaKov ; €K(pvyep c^bdv. 

MOSCHUS, Epitaph. Bion. 

It is my intention to subjoin to the London edition of this 
poem, a criticism upon the claims of its lamented ol)ject to be 
classed among the writers of the highest genius who have 
adorned our age. My known repugnance to the narrow prin- 
ciples of taste on which several of his earlier compositions 5 
were modelled prove[s] at least that I am an impartial judge. 
I consider the fragment of Hyperion as second to nothing that 
was ever produced by a writer of the same years. 

John Keats died at Rome of a consumption, in his twenty- 
fourth year, on the of - — - 1821 ; and was buried in the 10 

romantic "and lonely cemetery of the Protestants in that city, 
under the pyramid which is the tomb of Cestius, and the massy 
walls and towers, now mouldering and desolate, which formed 
the circuit of ancient Rome. The cemetery is an open space 
among the ruins covered in winter with violets and daisies. It 15 
might make one in love with death, to think that one should be 
buried in so sweet a place. 

The genius of the lamented person to whose memory I 
have dedicated these unworthy verses, was not less delicate and 
fragile than it was beautiful ; and, where cankerworms abound, 20 
what wonder if its young flower was blighted in the bud.'* The 
savage criticism on his Endymion, which appeared in the 
Qitarter-ly Review^ produced the most violent effect on his 
susceptible mind ; the agitation thus originated ended in the 
rupture of a blood-vessel in the lungs ; a rapid consumption 25 
ensued, and the succeeding acknowledgments from more can- 
did critics, of the true greatness of his powers, were ineffectual 
to heal the wound thus wantonly inflicted. 



PREFACE TO A DON A IS. 255 

It may be well said that these wretched men know not 

30 what they do. They scatter their insults and their slanders 
without heed as to whether the poisoned shaft lights on a heart 
made callous by many blows, or one like Keats's, composed 
of more penetrable stuff. One of their associates is, to my 
knowledge, a most base and unprincipled calumniator. As to 

35 Etidy7?iioii, — was it a poem, whatever might be its defects, to 
be treated contemptuously by those who had celebrated, with 
various degrees of complacency and panegyric, Paris^ and 
Wo7}ian, and A Syriati Tale, and Mrs. Lefanu, and Mr. Bar- 
rett, and Mr. Howard Payne, and a long list of the illustrious 

40 obscure ? Are these the men who, in their venal good nature, 
presumed to draw a parallel between the Rev. Mr. Milman and 
Lord Byron? What gnat did they strain at here, after having 
swallowed all those camels? Against what woman taken in 
adultery, dares the foremost of these literary prostitutes to cast 

45 his opprobrious stone? Miserable man! you, one of the mean- 
est, have wantonly defaced one of the noblest specimens of 
the workmanship of God. Nor shall it be your excuse that, 
murderer as you are, you have spoken daggers, but used none. 
The circumstances of the closing scene of poor Keats's 

50 life were not made known to me until the Elegy was ready for 
the press. I am given to understand that the wound which his 
sensitive spirit had received from the criticism of Endymion 
was exasperated by the bitter sense of unrequited benefits; the 
poor fellow seems to have been hooted from the stage of life, 

55 no less by those on whom he had wasted the promise of his 
genius, than those on whom he had lavished his fortune and 
his care. He was accompanied to Rome, and attended in his last 
illness, by Mr. Severn, a young artist of the highest promise, 
who, I have been informed, " almost risked his own life, and 

60 sacrificed every prospect to unwearied attendance upon his 
dying friend." Had I known these circumstances before the 
completion of my poem, I should have been tempted to add 
my feeble tribute of applause to the more solid recompense 
which the virtuous man finds in the recollection of his own 

65 motives. Mr. Severn can dispense with a reward from " such 



256 ADONAIS. ^ 

stuff as dreams are made of." His conduct is a golden augury 
of the success of his future career — may the unextinguished 
Spirit of his illustrious friend animate the creations of his 
pencil, and plead against Oblivion for his name ! 



ADONAIS. 

I. 

I WEEP for Adonais — he is dead ! 
O, weep for Adonais ! though our tears 
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head ! 
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years 
To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers, 
And teach them thine own sorrow, say : with me 
Died Adonais ; till the Future dares 
Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be 
An echo and a light unto eternity. 



Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay, 10 

When thy Son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies 
In darkness ? where was lorn Urania 
When Adonais died ? With veiled eyes, 
'Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise 
She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath, 15 

Rekindled all the fading melodies, 
With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath, 
He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of death. 



O, weep for Adonais — he is dead ! 

Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep ! 

Yet wherefore ? Quench within their burning bed 



A DONA IS. 257 

Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep, 
Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep ; 
For he is gone, where all things wise and fair 
Descend ; — oh, dream not that the amorous Deep 25 
Will yet restore him to the vital air ; 
Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair. 



Most musical of mourners, weep again ! 
Lament anew, Urania ! — He died, 

Who was the Sire of an immortal strain, 3° 

Blind, old, and lonely, when his country's pride. 
The priest, the slave, and the liberticide, 
Trampled and mocked with many a loathed rite 
Of lust and blood ; he went, unterrified, 
Into the gulph of death ; but his clear Sprite 35 

Yet reigns o'er earth ; the third among the sons of light. 

V. 

Most musical of mourners, weep anew ! 
Not all to that bright station dared to climb ; 
And happier they their happiness who knew. 
Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time 40 

In which suns perished ; others more sublime, 
Struck by the envious wrath of man or God, 
Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime ; 
And some yet live, treading the thorny road, 
Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame's serene abode. 45 



But now, thy youngest, dearest one has perished, 
The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew. 
Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished. 
And fed with true love tears, instead of dew ; 



258 SELECTED POEMS. 

Most musical of mourners, weep anew ! 50 

Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and the last, 
The bloom, whose petals, nipped before they blew, 
Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste ; 
The broken lily lies — the storm is overpast. 



To that high Capital, where kingly Death 55 

Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay, 
He came ; and bought, with price of purest breath, 
A grave among the eternal. — Come away ! 
Haste, while the vault of blue Italian day 
Is yet his fitting charnel-roof ! while still 60 

He lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay ; 
Awake him not ! surely he takes his fill 
Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill. 

VIII. 

He will awake no more, oh, never more ! — 
Within the twilight chamber spreads apace, 65 

The shadow of white Death, and at the door 
Invisible Corruption waits to trace 
His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place ; 
The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe 
Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface - 7° 

So fair a prey, till darkn^s, and the law 
Of change, shall o'er his sleep the mortal curtain draw. 



O, weep for Adonais ! — The quick Dreams, 

The passion-winged Ministers of thought. 

Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams 75 

Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught 



ADONAIS. 259 

The love which was its music, wander not, — 
Wander no more, from kindhng brain to brain, 
But droop there, whence they sprung ; and mourn their lot 
Round the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain, 80 
They ne'er will gather strength, or find a home again. 

X. 

And one with trembling hands clasps his cold head, 
And fans him with her moonlight wings, and cries : 
" Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead ; 
" See, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes, 85 

" Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies 
" A tear some Dream has loosened from his brain." 
Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise ! 
She knew not 't was her own ; as with no stain 
She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain. 90 



One from a lucid urn of starry dew 
Washed his light limbs as if embalming them ; 
Another clipped her profuse locks, and threw 
The wreath upon him, like an anadem. 
Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem ; 95 

Another in her wilful grief would break 
Her bow and winged reeds, as if to stem 
A greater loss with one which was more weak ; 
And dull the barbed fire against his frozen cheek. 



Another Splendour on his mouth alit, 100 

That mouth, whence it was wont to draw the breath 

Which gave it strength to pierce the guarded wit. 

And pass into the panting heart beneath 

With lightning and with music : the damp death 



26o SELECTED POEMS. 

Quenched its caress upon his icy lips ; 105 

And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath 
Of moonlight vapour, which the cold night clips. 
It flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to its eclipse. 

XIII. 

And others came . . . Desires and Adorations, 
Winged Persuasions and veiled Destinies, no 

Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering Incarnations 
Of hopes and fears, and twilight Phantasies ; 
And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs, 
And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam 
Of her own dying smile instead of eyes, "5 

Came in slow pomp ; — the moving pomp might seem 
Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream, 

XIV. 

All he had loved, and moulded into thought, 
From shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound. 
Lamented Adonais. Morning sought 120 

Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound. 
Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground. 
Dimmed the aerial eyes that kindle day; 
Afar the melancholy thunder moaned. 
Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay, 125 

And the wild winds flew round, sobbing in their dismay. 



Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains. 

And feeds her grief with his remembered lay. 

And will no more reply to winds or fountains. 

Or amorous birds perched on the young green spray, 130 

Or herdsman's horn, or bell at closing day ; 

Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear 



A DONA IS. 261 

Than those for whose disdain she pined away 
Into a shadow of all sounds : — a drear 
Murmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen hear. 135 



Grief made the young Spring wild, and she threw down 
Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were. 
Or they dead leaves ; since her delight is flown 
For whom should she have waked the sullen year ? 
To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear 140 

Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both 
Thou, Adonais : wan they stand and sere 
Amid the faint companions of their youth. 
With dew all turned to tears ; odour, to sighing ruth. 

XVII. 

Thy spirit's sister, the lorn nightingale, US 

Mourns not her mate with such melodious pain ; 
Not so the eagle, who like thee could scale 
Heaven, and could nourish in the sun's domain 
Her mighty youth with morning, doth complain, 
Soaring and screaming round her empty nest, 150 

As Albion wails for thee : the curse of Cain 
Light on his head who pierced thy innocent breast. 
And scared the angel soul that was its earthly guest ! 



Ah woe is me ! Winter is come and gone, 

But grief returns with the revolving year ; ^55 

The airs and streams renew their joyous tone ; 

The ants, the bees, the swallows reappear ; 

Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Seasons' bier ; 

The amorous birds now pair in every brake, 

And build their mossy homes in field and brere ; 160 



262 SELECTED POEMS. 

And the green lizard, and the golden snake, 
Like unimprisoned flames, out of their trance awake. 

XIX. 

Through wood and stream and field and hill and Ocean 
A quickening life from the Earth's heart has burst 
As it has ever done, with change and motion 165 

From the great morning of the world when first 
God dawned on Chaos ; in its stream immersed 
The lamps of Heaven flash with a softer light ; 
All baser things pant with life's sacred thirst ; 
Diffuse themselves; and spend in love's delight 170 

The beauty and the joy of their renewed might. 

XX. 

The leprous corpse touched by this spirit tender 
Exhales itself in flowers of gentle breath ; 
Like incarnations of the stars, when splendour 
Is changed to fragrance, they illumine death 175 

And mock the merry worm that wakes beneath ; 
Naught we know, dies. Shall that alone which knows 
Be as a sword consumed before the sheath 
By sightless lightning? — th' intense atom glows 
A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose. 180 

XXI. 

Alas ! that all we loved of him should be, 
But for our grief, as if it had not been. 
And grief itself be mortal ! Woe is me ! 
Whence are we, and why are we ? of what scene 
The actors or spectators? Great and mean 185 

Meet massed in death, who lends what life must borrow. 
As long as skies are blue, and fields are green. 
Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow. 
Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow. 



A DONA IS. 



XXII. 



263 



He will awake no more, oh, never more! 190 

"Wake thou," cried Misery, "childless Mother, rise 
"Out of thy sleep, and slake, in thy heart's core, 
"A wound more fierce than his with tears and sighs." 
And all the Dreams that watched Urania's eyes. 
And all the Echoes whom their sister's song ^95 

Had held in holy silence, cried: "Arise!" 
Swift as a Thought by the snake Memory stung, 
From her ambrosial rest the fading Splendour sprung. 

XXIII. 

She rose like an autumnal Night, that springs 
Out of the East, and follows wild and drear 200 

The golden Day, which, on eternal wings. 
Even as a ghost abandoning a bier. 
Had left the Earth a corpse. Sorrow and fear 
So struck, so roused, so rapt Urania ; 
So saddened round her like an atmosphere 205 

Of stormy mist ; so swept her on her way 
Even to the mournful place where Adonais lay. 



XXIV. 



Out of her secret Paradise she sped. 

Through camps and cities rough with stone, and steel. 

And human hearts, which to her aery tread 210 

Yielding not, wounded the invisible 

Palms of her tender feet where'er they fell : 

And barbed tongues, and thoughts more sharp than 

they, 
Rent the soft Form they never could repel. 
Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May, 215 

Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way. 



264 SELECTED POEMs. 



In the death chamber for a moment Death, 
Shamed by the presence of that Hving Might, 
Blushed to annihilation, and the breath 
Revisited those lips, and life's pale light 220 

Flashed through those limbs, so late her dear delight. 
"Leave me not wild and drear and comfortless, 
"As silent lightning leaves the starless night ! 
"Leave me not!" cried Urania: her distress 
Roused Death: Death rose and smiled, and met her vain 

caress. • 225 



" Stay yet awhile ! speak to me once again ; 
"Kis6 me, so long but as a kiss may live ; 
"And in my heartless breast and burning brain 
"That word, that kiss shall all thoughts else survive, 
"With food of saddest memory kept alive, 230 

"Now thou art dead, as if it were a part 
"Of thee, my Adonais! I would give 
"All that I am to be as thou now art! 
"But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart! 



"Oh gentle child, beautiful as thou wert, 235 

"Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men 
"Too soon, and with weak hands though mighty heart 
"Dare the unpastured dragon in his den? 
"Defenceless as thou wert, oh where was then 
"Wisdom the mirrored shield, or scorn the spear? 240 
"Or hadst thou waited the full cycle, when 
"Thy spirit should have filled its crescent sphere, 
The monsters of life's waste had fled from thee like deer. 



A DON A IS. 265 



"The herded wolves, bold only to pursue; 
"The obscene ravens, clamorous o'er the dead; 245 

"The vultures to the conqueror's banner true, 
"Who feed where Desolation first has fed, 
"And whose wings rain contagion ; — how they fled, 
"When like Apollo, from his golden bow, ^ 
"The Pythian of the age one arrow sped 250 

"And smiled ! — The spoilers tempt no second blow; 
■They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them lying low. 



"The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn; 
"He sets, and each ephemeral insect then 
"Is gathered into death without a dawn, 255 

"And the immortal stars awake again; 
"So is it in the world of living men: 
"A godlike mind soars forth, in its delight 
"Making earth bare and veiling heaven, and when 
"It sinks, the swarms that dimmed or shared its light 260 
Leave to its kindred lamps the spirit's awful night." 



Thus ceased she: and the mountain shepherds came. 
Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent ; 
The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame 

Over his living head like Heaven is bent, 265 

An early but enduring monument. 
Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song 
In sorrow ; from her wilds lerne sent 
The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong. 
And love taught grief to fall like music from his tongue. 270 



266 SELECTED POEMS. 



XXXI. 

Midst others of less note, came one frail Form, 
A phantom among men, companionless 
As the last cloud of an expiring storm 
Whose thunder is its knell ; he, as I guess, 
Had gazed on Nature's naked loveliness, 275 

Actaeon-like, and now he fled astray 
With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness. 
And his own thoughts, along that rugged way, 
Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey. 



A pardlike Spirit beautiful and swift — 280 

A Love in desolation masked ; — a Power 
Girt round with weakness ; — it can scarce uplift 
The weight of the superincumbent hour; 
It is a dying lamp, a falling shower, 

A breaking billow ; — even whilst we speak 285 

Is it not broken ? On the withering flower 
The killing sun smiles brightly; on a cheek 
The life can burn in blood, even while the heart may break. 



His head was bound with pansies overblown, 
And faded violets, white, and pied, and blue ; 290 

And a light spear topped with a cypress cone. 
Round whose rude shaft dark ivy tresses grew 
Yet dripping with the forest's noonday dew. 
Vibrated, as the ever-beating heart 

Shook the weak hand that grasped it ; of that crew 295 
He came the last, neglected and apart ; 
A herd-abandoned deer struck by the hunter's dart. 



ADONAIS, 267 



XXXIV. 

All stood aloof, and at his partial moan 
Smiled through their tears ; well knew that gentle band 
Who in another's fate now wept his own ; 300 

As, in the accents of an unknown land. 
He sung new sorrow ; sad Urania scanned 
The Stranger's mien, and murmured : "who art thou? " 
He answered not, but with a sudden hand • 
Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow, 305 

Which was like Cain's or Christ's — Oh ! that it should 
be so! 

XXXV. 

What softer voice is hushed over the dead? 
Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown ? 
What form leans sadly o'er the white death-bed, 
In mockery of monumental stone, 3^° 

The heavy heart heaving without a moan ? 
If it be He, who, gentlest of the wise, 
Taught, soothed, loved, honoured the departed one, 
Let me not vex with inharmonious sighs 
The silence of that heart's accepted sacrifice. 3^5 

XXXVI. 

Our Adonais has drunk poison — oh ! 
What deaf and viperous murderer could crown 
Life's early cup with such a draught of woe? 
The nameless worm would now itself disown : 
It felt, yet could escape the magic tone 320 

Whose prelude held all envy, hate, and wrong. 
But what was howling in one breast alone. 
Silent with expectation of the song, 
Whose master's hand is cold, whose silver lyre unstrung. 



268 SELECTED POEMS. 



XXXVII. 



Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame ! 325 

Live ! fear no heavier chastisement from me, 
Thou noteless blot on a remembered name! 
But be thyself, and know thyself to be ! 
And ever at thy season be thou free 

To spill the venom when thy fangs o'erflow : 7>?P 

Remorse and Self-contempt shall cling to thee ; 
Hot Shame shall burn upon thy secret brow, 
And like a beaten hound tremble thou shalt — as now, 

XXXVIII. 

Nor let us weep that our delight is fled 
Far from these carrion kites that scream below ; 335 

He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead ; 
Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now. — 
Dust to the dust ! but the pure spirit shall flow 
Back to the burning fountain whence it came, 
A portion of the Eternal, which must glow 34o 

Through time and change, unquenchably the same, 
Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of shame. 

XXXIX. 

Peace, peace ! he is not dead, he doth not sleep — 
He hath awakened from the dream of life — 
'T is we who, lost in stormy visions, keep 345 

With phantoms an unprofitable strife. 
And in mad trance strike with our spirit's knife 
Invulnerable nothings. — We decay 
Like corpses in a charnel ; fear and grief 
Convulse us and consume us day by day, 35° 

And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay. 



A DONA IS. 269 



XL. 

He has outsoared the shadow of our night; 
Envy and calumny and hate and pain, 
And that unrest which men miscall delight, 
Can touch him not and torture not again; 355 

From the contagion of the world's slow stain 
He is secure, and now can never mourn 
A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain ; 
Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn, 
With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn. 360 

XLI. 

He lives, he wakes — 't is Death is dead, not he; 
Mourn not for Adonais. — Thou young Dawn 
Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee 
The spirit thou lamentest is not gone ; 
Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moan! 365 

Cease ye faint flowers and fountains, and thou Air 
Which like a mourning veil thy scarf hadst thrown 
O'er the abandoned Earth, now leave it bare 
Even to the joyous stars which smile on its despair ! 

XLII. 

He is made one with Nature : there is heard 37° 

His voice in all her music, from the moan 
Of thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird; 
He is a presence to be felt and known 
In darkness and in light, from herb and stone, 
Spreading itself where'er that Power may move 375 

Which has withdrawn his being to its own ; 
Which wields the world with never wearied love, 
Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above. 



270 SELECTED POEMS. 



XLIII. 

He is a portion of the loveliness 

Which once he made more lovely : he doth bear 3^° 

His part, while the one Spirit's plastic stress 
Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling there 
All new successions to the forms they wear ; 
Torturing th' unwilling dross that checks its flight 
To its own likeness, as each mass may bear; 3S5 

And bursting in its beauty and its might 
From trees and beasts and men into the Heaven's light. 

XLIV. 

The splendours of the firmament of time 
May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not; 
Like stars to their appointed height they climb 3^° 

And death is a low mist which cannot blot 
The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought 
Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair, 
And love and life contend in it, for what 
Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there 395 

And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air. 

XLV. 

The inheritors of unfulfilled renown 
Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought. 
Far in the Unapparent. Chatterton 

Rose pale, his solemn agony had not 400 

Yet faded from him; Sidney, as he fought 
And as he fell and as he lived and loved 
Sublimely mild, a Spirit without spot, 
Arose ; and Lucan, by his death approved: 
Oblivion as they rose shrank like a thing reproved. 405 



A DONA IS. 271 



XLVI. 



And many more, whose names on Earth are dark 
But whose transmitted effluence cannot die 
So long as fire outlives the parent spark, 
Rose, robed in dazzling immortality. 
" Thou art become as one of us," they cry, 410 

" It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long 
" Swung blind in unascended majesty, 
" Silent alone amid an Heaven of Song. 
" Assume thy winged throne, thou Vesper of our throng ! " 

XLVII. 

Who mourns for Adonais ? oh come forth 415 

Fond wretch ! and know thyself and him aright. 
Clasp with thy panting soul the pendulous Earth; 
As from a centre, dart thy spirit's light 
Beyond all worlds, until its spacious might 
Satiate the void circumference : then shrink 420 

Even to a point within our day and night ; 
And keep thy heart light lest it make thee sink 
When hope has kindled hope, and lured thee to the brink. 

XLVIII. 

Or go to Rome, which is the sepulchre, 
O, not of him, but of our joy : 't is naught 425 

That ages, empires, and religions there 
Lie buried in the ravage they have wrought ; 
For such as he can lend, — they borrow not 
Glory from those who made the world their prey; 
And he is gathered to the kings of thought 43° 

Who waged contention with their time's decay, 
And of the past are all that cannot pass away. 



272 SELECTED POEMS. 



XLIX. 

Go thou to Rome, — at once the Paradise, 
The grave, the city, and the wilderness ; 
And where its wrecks Hke shattered mountains rise, 435 
And flowering weeds and fragrant copses dress 
The bones of Desolation's nakedness 
Pass, till the Spirit of the spot shall lead 
Thy footsteps to a slope of green access 
Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead, 44° 

A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread. 

L. 

And gray walls moulder round, on which dull Time 
Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand ; 
And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime, 
Pavilioning the dust of him who planned 445 

This refuge for his memory, doth stand 
Like flame transformed to marble ; and beneath, 
A field is spread, on which a newer band 
Have pitched in Heaven's smile their camp of daath 
Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished breath. 45° 

LI. 

Here pause : these graves are all too young as yet 
To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned 
Its charge to each ; and if the seal is set. 
Here, on one fountain of a mourning mind. 
Break it not thou ! too surely shalt thou find 455 

Thine own well full, if thou returnest home. 
Of tears and gall. From the world's bitter wind 
Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb. 
What Adonais is, why fear we to become .'' 



ADONAIS. 273 



LII. 



The One remains, the many change and pass ; 460 

Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly ; 
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, 
Stains the white radiance of Eternity, 
Until Death tramples it to fragments. — Die, 
If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek ! 4^5 
Follow where all is fled ! — Rome's azure sky, 
Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak 
The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak. 

LIII. 

Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my Heart ? 
Thy hopes are gone before : from all things here 47o 

They have departed ; thou shouldst now depart ! 
A light is past from the revolving year. 
And man, and woman ; and what still is dear 
Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither. 
The soft sky smiles, — the low wind whispers near ; 475 
'T is Adonais calls! oh, hasten thither. 
No more let Life divide what Death can join together. 

LIV. 

That Light whose smile kindles the Universe, 
That Beauty in which all things work and move. 
That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse 480 

Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love 
Which, through the web of being blindly wove 
By man and beast and earth and air and sea. 
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of 
The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me, 485 

Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality. 



274 SELECTED POEMS. 



LV. 



The breath whose might I have invoked in song 
Descends on me ; my spirit's bark is driven, 
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng 
Whose sails were never to the tempest given ; 49° 

The massy earth and sphered skies are riven! 
I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar : 
Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven, 
The soul of Adonais, like a star. 
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are. 495 



SONNET: POLITICAL GREATNESS. 

Nor happiness, nor majesty, nor fame, 
Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts, 
Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame ; 
Verse echoes not one beating of their hearts, 
History is but the shadow of their shame. 
Art veils her glass, or from the pageant starts 
As to oblivion their blind millions fleet. 
Staining that Heaven with obscene imagery 
Of their own likeness. What are numbers knit 
By force or custom ? Man who man would be, 
Must rule the empire of himself ; in it 
Must be supreme, establishing his throne 
On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy 
Of hopes and fears, being himself alone. 



THE AZIOLA. — A LAMENT. 275 



THE AZIOLA. 



"Do you not hear the Aziola cry? 
Methinks she must be nigh," 
Said Mary, as we sate 
In dusk, ere stars were lit, or candles brought; 

And I, who thought 5 

This Aziola was some tedious woman, 

Asked, " Who is Aziola ? " How elate 
I felt to know that it was nothing human, 
No mockery of myself to fear or hate : 

And Mary saw my soul, 10 

And laughed, and said, " Disquiet yourself not ; 
'Tis nothing but a little downy owl." 

II. 
Sad Aziola ! many an eventide 

Thy music I had heard 
By wood and stream, meadow and mountain-side, 15 

And fields and marshes wide, 
Such as nor voice, nor lute, nor wind, nor bird, 

The soul ever stirred ; 

Unlike and far sweeter than them all. 

Sad Aziola ! from that moment I 20 

Loved thee and thy sad cry. 

1821. 



A LAMENT. 



Oh, world ! oh, life ! oh, time ! 
On whose last steps I climb 

Trembling at that where I had stood before 



276 SELECTED POEMS. 

When will return the glory of your prime ? 
No more — O, never more ! 



Out of the day and night 
A joy has taken flight ; 

Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar, 
Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight 
No more — O, never more ! 

182] 



REMEMBRANCE. 



Swifter far than summer's flight — 
Swifter far than youth's delight — 
Swifter far than happy night, 

Art thou come and gone — 
As the wood when leaves are shed, 
As the night when sleep has fled. 
As the heart when joy is dead, 

I am left lone, alone. 

II. 

The swallow summer comes again — 
The owlet night resumes his reign — 
But the wild-swan youth is fain 

To fly with thee, false as thou. 
My heart each day desires the morrow ; 
Sleep itself is turned to sorrow ; 
Vainly would my winter borrow 

Sunny leaves from any bough. 



TO-MORR O W. — LINES. 277 



Lilies for a bridal bed — 
Roses for a matron's head — 
Violets for a maiden dead — 

Pansies let ?ny flowers be : 
On the living grave I bear 
Scatter them without a tear — 
•Let no friend, however dear, 

Waste one hope, one fear for me. 

1821. 



TO-MORROW. 

Where art thou, beloved To-morrow } 

When young and old and strong and weak. 

Rich and poor, through joy and sorrow. 
Thy sweet smiles we ever seek, — 

In thy place — ah ! well-a-day ! 

We find the thing we fled — ^ To-day. 



182] 



LINES. 



If I walk in Autumn's even 

While the dead leaves pass. 
If I look on Spring's soft heaven, — 

Something is not there which was. . 
Winter's wondrous frost and snow, 
Summer's clouds, where are they now 



1821. 



278 SELECTED POEMS. 



TO 



One word is too often profaned 

For me to profane it, 
One feeling too falsely disdained 

For thee to disdain it. 
One hope is too like despair 

For prudence to smother, 
And pity from thee more dear 

Than that from another. 



I can give not what men call love. 

But wilt thou accept not 10 

The worship the heart lifts above 

And the Heavens reject not, — 
The desire of the moth for the star, 

Of the night for the morrow\ 
The devotion to something afar 15 

From the sphere of our sorrow ? 



TO 



When passion's trance is overpast, 
If tenderness and truth could last 
Or live, whilst all wild feelings keep 
Some mortal slumber, dark and deep, 
I should not weep, I should not weep ! 



A BRIDAL SONG. 279 



It were enough to feel, to see 

Thy soft eyes gazing tenderly, 

And dream the rest — and burn and be 

The secret food of fires unseen, 

Couldst thou but be as thou hast been 



After the slumber of the year 
The woodland violets re-appear, 
All things revive in field or grove 
And sky and sea, but two, which move 
And form all others, life and love. 

1821. 



A BRIDAL SONG. 



The golden gates of Sleep unbar 

Where Strength and Beauty met together 

Kindle their image like a star 
In a sea of glassy weather. 

Night, with all thy stars look down, — 
Darkness, weep thy holiest dew, — 

Never smiled the inconstant moon 
On a pair so true. 

Let eyes not see their own delight ; — 

Haste, swift Hour, and thy flight 
Oft renew. 



Fairies, sprites, and angels keep her ! 
Holy stars, permit no wrong ! 



2 8o SELECTED POEMS. 

And return to wake the sleeper, 

Dawn, — ere it be long 15 

Oh joy ! oh fear ! what will be done 
In the absence of the sun ! 



Come along! 



1821. 



SONG FR(3M HELLAS. 

Life may change, but it may fly not: 
Hope may vanish, but can die not ; 
Truth be veiled, but still it burneth ; 
Love repulsed, — but it returneth ! 

Yet were life a charnel where 
Hope lay coffined with Despair ; 
Yet were truth a sacred lie, 
Love were lust — 

If Liberty 
Lent not life its soul of light, 
Hope its iris of delight. 
Truth its prophet's robe to wear. 
Love its power to give and bear. 



CHORUS FROM HELLAS. 

The young moon has fed 
Her exhausted horn, 
With the sunset's fire : 

The weak day is dead. 

But the night is not born ; 



FINAL CHORUS FROM HELLAS. 281 

And, like loveliness panting with wild desire 
While it trembles with fear and delight, 
Hesperus flies from awakening night. 
And pants in its beauty and speed with light 

Fast flashing, soft, and bright. 10 

Thou beacon of love ! thou lamp of the free ! 

Guide us far, far away. 
To climes where now veiled by the ardour of day 
Thou art hidden 
From waves on which weary noon, 15 

Faints in her summer swoon, 
Between Kingless continents sinless as Eden, 
Around mountains and islands inviolably 
Prankt on the sapphire sea. 

1821. 



FINAL CHORUS FROM HELLAS. 

The world's great age begins anew. 

The golden years return, 
The earth doth like a snake renew 

Her winter weeds outworn : 
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam, 
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream. 

A brighter Hellas rears its mountains 

From waves serener far ; 
A new Peneus rolls his fountains 

Against the morning-star. 
Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep 
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep. 

A loftier Argo cleaves the main, 
Fraught with a later prize ; 



282 SELECTED POEMS. 

Another Orpheus sings again, 15 

And loves, and weeps, and dies. 
A new Ulysses leaves once more. 
Calypso for his native shore. 

O, write no more the tale of Troy, 

If earth Death's scroll must be ! 20 

Nor mix with Laian rage the joy 

Which dawns upon the free : 
Although a subtler Sphinx renew 
Riddles of death Thebes never knew. 

Another Athens shall arise, 25 

And to remoter time 
Bequeath, like sunset to the skies, 

The splendour of its prime ; 
And leave, if naught so bright may live, 
All earth can take or Heaven can give. 3° 

Saturn and Love their long repose 

Shall burst, more bright and good 
Than all who fell, than One who rose, 

Than many unsubdued : 
Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers, 35 

But votive tears and symbol flowers. 

O cease ! must hate and death return ? 

Cease ! must men kill and die? 
Cease ! drain not to its dregs the urn 

Of bitter prophecy. 40 

The world is weary of the past, 
O might it die or rest at last ! 

1821. 



TO EDWARD WILLIAMS. 283 

TO EDWARD WILLIAMS. 



The serpent is shut out from paradise. 

The wounded deer must seek the herb no more 

In which its heart-cure lies : 
The widowed dove must cease to haunt a bower 
Like that from which its mate with feigned sighs 5 

Fled in the April hour. 
I too must seldom seek again 
Near happy friends a mitigated pain. 

II. 

Of hatred I am proud, — with scorn content ; 

Indifference, that once hurt me, now is grown 10 

Itself indifferent. 
But, not to speak of love, pity alone 
Can break a spirit already more than bent. 
The miserable one 
Turns the mind's poison into food, — 15 

Its medicine is tears, — its evil good. 

III. 
Therefore, if now I see you seldomer. 

Dear friends, dQ2iX friend f know that I only fly 

Your looks, because they stir 
Griefs that should sleep, and hopes that cannot die : 20 
The very comfort that they minister 
I scarce can bear, yet I, 
So deeply is the arrow gone. 
Should quickly perish if it were withdrawn. 



When I return to my cold home, you ask 25 

Why I am not as I have ever been. 



284 SELECTED POEMS. 

You spoil me for the task 

Of acting a forced part in life's dull scene, 

Of wearing on my brow the idle mask 

Of author, great or mean, 30 

In the world's carnival. I sought 
Peace thus, and but in you I found it not. 



V. 

Full half an hour, to-day, I tried my lot 

With various flowers, and every one still said, 

" She loves me loves me not." 35 

And if this meant a vision long since fled — 
If it meant fortune, fame, or peace of thought — 
If it meant, — but I dread 
To speak what you may know too well : 
Still there was truth in the sad oracle. " 40 

VI. 

The crane o'er seas and forests seeks her home ; 
No bird so wild but has its quiet nest. 

When it no more would roam ; 
The sleepless billows on the ocean's breast 
Break like a bursting heart, and die in foam, 45 

And thus at length find rest. 
Doubtless there is a place of peace 
Where fny weak heart and all its throbs will cease. 

VII. 

I asked her, yesterday, if she believed 

That I had resolution. One who had 50 

Would ne'er have thus relieved 
His heart with words, — but what his judgment bade 
Would do, and leave the scorner unrelieved. 
These verses are too sad 
To send to you, but that I know, 55 

Happy yourself, you feel another's woe. 1821. 



THE MAGNETIC LADY TO HER PATIENT 285 



SONG. 

'' A WIDOW bird sate mourning for her love 

Upon a wintry 'bough ; 
The frozen wind crept on above, 

The freezing stream below. 

" There was no leaf upon the forest bare, 

No flower upon the ground, 
And little motion in the air 

Except the mill-wheel's sound." 



1821. 



THE MAGNETIC LADY TO HER PATIENT. 



" Sleep, sleep on ! forget thy pain ; 

My hand is on thy brow, 
My spirit on thy brain. 
My pity on thy heart, poor friend ; 

And from my fingers flow 
The powers of life, and like a sign, 

Seal thee from thine hour of woe, 
And brood on thee, but may not blend 
With thine. 



" Sleep, sleep on ! I love thee not ; 10 

But when I think that he 
Who made and makes my lot 
As full of flowers as thine of weeds, 

Might have been lost like thee, 
And that a hand which was not mine 15 



286 SELECTED POEMS. 

Might then have charmed his agony 
As I another's — my heart bleeds 
For thine. 

III. 
" Sleep, sleep, and with the slumber of 

The dead and the unborn 20 

Forget thy life and love ; 
Forget that thou must wake for ever ; , 

Forget the world's dull scorn ; 
Forget lost health, and the divine 

Feelings which died in youth's brief morn ; 25 
And forget me, for I can never 
Be thine. 

IV. 

" Like a cloud big with a May shower, 

My soul weeps healing rain, 
On thee, thou withered Hower ; 30 

It breathes mute music on thy sleep ; 

Its odour calms thy brain ; 
Its light within thy gloomy breast 

Spreads like a second youth again. 
By mine thy being is to its deep 35 

Possessed. 

v. 
" The spell is done. How feel you now ? " 

" Better — Quite well," replied 

The sleeper. — " What would do 
You good when suffering and awake ? 40 

What cure your head and side ? — " 
"What would cure, that would kill me, Jane : 

And as I must on earth abide 
Awhile, yet tempt me not to break 

My chain." 1822. 45 



LINES. 287 

LINES. 



When the lamp is shattered 
The light in the dust lies dead — 

When the cloud is scattered 
The rainbow's glory is shed. 

When the lute is broken, 
Sweet tones are remembered not 

When the lips have spoken, 
Loved accents are soon forgot. 



As music and splendour 
Survive not the lamp and the lute, 

The heart's echoes render 
No song when the spirit is mute, — 

No song but sad dirges, 
Like the wind through a ruined cell. 

Or the mournful surges 
That ring the dead seaman's knell. 



When hearts have once mingled 
Love first leaves the well-built nest, — 

The weak one is singled 
To endure what it once possessed. 20 

O, Love ! who bewailest 
The frailty of all things here, 

Why choose you the frailest 
For your cradle, your home and your bier ? 

IV. 

Its passions will rock thee 25 

As the storms rock the ravens on high : 



2 88 SELECTED POEMS. 

Bright reason will mock thee, 
Like the sun from a wintry sky. 

From thy nest every rafter 
Will rot, and thine eagle home 3^ 

Leave thee naked to laughter. 
When leaves fall and cold winds come. 



TO JANE — THE INVITATION. 

Best and brightest, come away ! 

Fairer far than this fair Day, 

Which, like thee to those in sorrow, 

Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow 

To the rough Year just awake 5 

In its cradle on the brake. 

The brightest hour of unborn Spring, 

Through the winter wandering. 

Found, it seems, the halcyon Morn 

To koar February born ; lo 

Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth. 

It kissed the forehead of the Earth, 

And smiled upon the silent sea. 

And bade the frozen streams be free, 

And waked to music all their fountains, iS 

And breathed upon the frozen mountains, 

And like a prophetess of May 

Strewed flowers upon the barren way, 

Making the wintry world appear 

Like one on whom thou smilest, dear. 20 

Away, away, from men and towns. 
To the wild wood and the downs — 



TO JANE--THE INVITAFION. 289 

To the silent wilderness 

Where the soul need not repress 

Its music lest it should not find 25 

An echo in another's mind, 

While the touch of Nature's art 

Harmonizes heart to heart. 

I leave this notice on my door 

For each accustomed visitor : — 30 

"I am gone into the fields 

To take what this sweet hour yields; — 

Reflexion, you may come to-morrow, 

wSit by the fireside with Sorrow. — 

You with the unpaid bill, Despair, — 35 

You tiresome verse-reciter. Care, — 

I will pay you in the grave, — 

Death will listen to your stave. 

Expectation too, be off ! 

To-day is for itself enough ; 40 

Hope, in pity mock not Woe 

With smiles, nor follow where I go ; 

Long having lived on thy sweet food. 

At length I find one moment's good 

After long pain — with all your love, 45 

This you never told me of." 

Radiant Sister of the Day, 

Awake ! arise ! and come away ! 

To the wild woods and the plains, 

And the pools where winter rains 5° 

Image all their roof of leaves, 

Where the pine its garland weaves 

Of sapless green and ivy dun 

Round stems that never kiss the sun ; 

Where the lawns and pastures be, 55 



290 SELECTED POEMS. 

And the sand-hills of the sea ; — 
Where the melting hoar-frost wets 
The daisy-star that never sets, 
And wind-flowers, and violets, 
Which yet join not scent to hue, 60 

Crown the pale year weak and new ; 
When the night is left behind 
In the deep east, dun and blind, 
And the blue noon is over us. 
And the multitudinous 65 

Billows murmur at our feet. 
Where the earth and ocean meet, 
And all things seem only one 
In the universal sun. 
February, 1822. 



TO JANE — THE RECOLLECTION. 

I. 

Now the last day of many days, 
All beautiful and bright as thou, 
The loveliest and the last, is dead, 
Rise, Memory, and write its praise ! 
Up to thy wonted work ! come, trace 

The epitaph of glory fled, — 
For now the Earth has changed its face, 
A frown is on the Heaven's brow. 

II. 

We wandered to the Pine Forest 
That skirts the Ocean's foam. 

The lightest wind was in its nest, 
The tempest in its home. 



TO JANE— THE RECOLLECTION. 291 

The whispering waves were half asleep, 

The clouds were gone to play, 
And on the bosom of the deep, 15 

The smile of Heaven lay ; 
It seemed as if the hour were one 

Sent from beyond the skies, 
Which scattered from above the sun 

A light of Paradise. 20 



We paused amid the pines that stood 

The giants of the waste, 
Tortured by storms to shapes as rude 

As serpents interlaced, 
And soothed by every azure breath, 25 

That under heaven is blown. 
To harmonies and hues beneath, 

As tender as its own ; 
Now all the tree-tops lay asleep, 

Like green waves on the sea, 3° 

As still as in the silent deep 

The ocean woods may be. 

IV. 

How calm it was ! — the silence there 

By such a chain was bound 
That even the busy woodpecker 35 

Made stiller by her sound 
The inviolable quietness ; 

The breath of peace we drew 
With its soft motion made not less 

The calm that round us grew. 40 

There seemed from the remotest seat 

Of the white mountain waste, 



292 SELECTED POEMS. 

To the soft flower beneath our feet, 

A magic circle traced, — 
A spirit interfused around, 45 

A thrilling silent life. 
To momentary peace it bound 

Our mortal nature's strife ; — 
And still I felt the centre of 

The magic circle there 5° 

Was one fair form that filled with love 

The lifeless atmosphere. 



We paused beside the pools that lie 

Under the forest bough ; 
Each seemed as 'twere a little sky 55 

Gulphed in a world below ; 
A firmament of purple light, 

Which in the dark earth lay, 
More boundless than the depth of night, 

And purer than the day — 60 

In which the lovely forests grew 

As in the upper air, 
More perfect both in shape and hue 

Than any spreading there. 
There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn, 65 

And through the dark green wood 
The white sun twinkling like the dawn 

Out of a speckled cloud. 
Sweet views which in our world above 

Can never well be seen, 7° 

Were imaged by the water's love 

Of that fair forest green. 
And all was interfused beneath 

With an elysian glow, 



WITH A GUITAR, TO JANE. 293 

An atmosphere without a breath, 75 

A softer day below. 
Like one beloved the scene had lent 

To the dark water's breast 
Its every leaf and lineament 

With more than truth expressed ; 80 

Until an envious wind crept by, 

Like an unwelcome thought, 
Which from the mind's too faithful eye 

Blots one dear image out. 
Though thou art ever fair and kind, 85 

The forests ever green, 
Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind, 

Than calm in waters seen. 
February, 1822. 



WITH A GUITAR, TO lANE. 

Ariel to Miranda. — Take 
This slave of Music, for the sake 
Of him who is the slave of thee. 
And teach it all the harmony 
In which thou canst, and only thou, 
Make the delighted spirit glow. 
Till joy denies itself again. 
And, too intense, is turned to pain ; 
For by permission and command 
Of thine own Prince Ferdinand, 
Poor Ariel sends this silent token 
Of more than ever can be spoken ; 
Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who. 
From life to life, must still pursue 
Your happiness ; — for thus alone 



2 94 SELECTED POEMS. 

Can Ariel ever find his own. 

From Prospero's enchanted cell, 

As the mighty verses tell, 

To the throne of Naples, he 

Lit you o'er the trackless sea, 20 

Flitting on, your prow before, 

Like a living meteor. 

When you die, the silent Moon, 

In her interlunar swoon. 

Is not sadder in her cell 25 

Than deserted Ariel. 

When you live again on earth, 

Like an unseen star of birth, 

Ariel guides you o'er the sea 

Of life from your nativity. 3° 

Many changes have been run, 

Since Ferdinand and you begun 

Your course of love, and Ariel still 

Has tracked your steps, and served your will ; 

Now, in humbler, happier lot, 35 

This is all remembered not ; 

And now, alas ! the poor sprite is 

Imprisoned, for some fault of his, 

In a body like a grave ; — 

From you he only dares to crave, 4° 

For his service and his sorrow, 

A smile to-day, a song to-morrow. 

The artist who this idol wrought. 

To echo all harmonious thought. 

Felled a tree, while on the steep 45 

The woods were in their winter sleep. 

Rocked in that repose divine 

On the wind-swept Apennine ; 



WITH A GUITAR, TO JANE. 295 

And dreaming, some of Autumn past, 

And some of Spring approaching fast, 5° 

And some of April buds and showers. 

And some of songs in July bowers, 

And all of love ; and so this tree, — 

O that such our death may be ! — 

Died in sleep, and felt no pain, 55 

To live in happier form again : 

From which, beneath Heaven's fairest star, 

The artist wrought this loved Guitar, 

And taught it justly to reply, 

To all who question skilfully, 60 

In language gentle as thine own ; 

Whispering in enamoured tone 

Sweet oracles of woods and dells. 

And summer winds in sylvan cells ; 

For it had learnt all harmonies ^5 

Of the plains and of the skies. 

Of the forests and the mountains. 

And the many-voiced fountains ; 

The clearest echoes of the hills, 

The softest notes of falling rills, 7° 

The melodies of birds and bees. 

The murmuring of summer seas, 

And pattering rain, and breathing dew. 

And airs of evening ; and it knew 

That seldom-heard mysterious sound, 75 

Which, driven on its diurnal round, 

As it floats through boundless day, 

Our world enkindles on its way — 

All this it knows, but will not tell 

To those who cannot question well 80 

The spirit that inhabits it ; 

It talks according to the wit 



296 SELECTED POEMS. 

Of its companions ; and no more 

Is heard tlian has been felt before, 

By those who tempt it to betray 85 

These secrets of an elder day : 

But sweetly as its answers will 

Flatter hands of perfect skill, 

It keeps its highest, holiest tone 

For our beloved Jane alone. 9° 

1822. 



TO JANE. 

I. 

The keen stars were twinkling. 
And the fair moon was rising among them, 
Dear Jane ! 
The guitar was tinkling. 
But the notes were not sweet till you sung them 
Again. 

II. 
As the moon's soft splendour 

O'er the faint cold starlight of heaven 

Is thrown, 
So your voice most tender 
To the strings without soul had then given 
Its own. 

III. 
The stars will awaken. 
Though the moon sleep a full hour later, 
To-night ; 
No leaf will be shaken 
Whilst the dews of your melody scatter 
Delight. 



LINES WRITTEN IN THE BAY OF LERICI 297 



Though the sound overpowers, 
Sing again, with your dear voice revealing 
A tone 

Of some world far from ours. 

Where music and moonlight and feeling 

Are one. 

1822. 



LINES WRITTEN IN THE BAY OF LERICI. 

She left me at the silent time 

When the moon had ceased to climb 

The azure path of Heaven's steep, 

And like an albatross asleep. 

Balanced on her wings of light. 

Hovered in the purple night. 

Ere she sought her ocean nest 

In the chambers of the West. 

She left me, and I stayed alone 

Thinking over every tone 

Which, though silent to the ear, 

The enchanted heart could hear, 

Like notes which die when born, but still 

Haunt the echoes of the hill ; 

And feeling ever — O too much ! — 

The soft vibration of her touch. 

As if her gentle hand, even now. 

Lightly trembled on my brow ; 

And thus, although she absent were, 

Memory gave me all of her 

That even Fancy dares to claim : — 

Her presence had made weak and tame 



298 SELECTED POEMS. 

All passions, and 1 lived alone 

In the time which is our own ; 

The past and future were forgot, 25 

As they had been, and would be, not. 

But soon, the guardian angel gone. 

The daemon reassumed his throne 

In my faint heart. I dare not speak 

My thoughts, but thus disturbed and weak 3° 

I sat and saw the vessels glide 

Over the ocean bright and wide, 

Like spirit-winged chariots sent 

O'er some serenest element 

For ministrations strange and far ; 35 

As if to some Elysian star 

Sailed for drink to medicine 

Such sweet and bitter pain as mine. 

And the wind that winged their flight 

From the land came fresh and light, 4° 

And the scent of winged flowers. 

And the coolness of the hours 

Of dew, and sweet warmth left by day, 

Were scattered o'er the twinkling bay. 

And the fisher with his lamp 45 

And spear about the low rocks damp 

Crept, and struck the fish which came 

To worship the delusive flame. 

Too happy they, whose pleasure sought 

Extinguishes all sense and thought 5° 

Of the regret that pleasure leaves. 

Destroying life alone, not peace ! 

1822. 



LINES. 299 



LINES. 



We meet not as we parted, 

We feel more than all may see, 

My bosom is heavy-hearted. 
And thine full of doubt for me. 
One moment has bound the free. 

II. 

That moment is gone for ever, 

Like lightning that flashed and died, 

Like a snow-flake upon the river. 
Like a sunbeam upon the tide, 
Which the dark shadows hide. 

III. 
That moment from time was singled 

As the first of a life of pain, 
The cup of its joy was mingled 

— Delusion too sweet though vain ! 

Too sweet to be mine again. 



Sweet lips, could my heart have hidden 

That its life was crushed by you, 
Ye would not have then forbidden 

The death which a heart so true 

Sought in your briny dew. 20 

V. 

* # * # 

* * * # 

* # * # 

Methinks too little cost 

P'or a moment so found, so lost ! 22 

1822. 



300 SELECTED POEMS. 



A DIRGE. 



Rough wind, that meanest loud 

Grief too sad for song ; 
Wild wind, when sullen cloud 

Knells all the night long ; 
Sad storm, whose tears are vain, 
Bare woods, whose branches stain, 
Deep caves and dreary main. 

Wail, for the world's wrong ! 



EPITAPH. 



1822. 



These are two friends whose lives were undivided; 
So let their memory be, now they have glided 
Under the grave ; let not their bones be parted, 
For their two hearts in life were single-hearted. 



NOTES. 



ALASTOR. 

The circumstances in which this poem was written serve to throw 
light upon its meaning. " Already at twenty-three Shelley was disil- 
lusioned of some eager and exorbitant hopes ; the first great experi- 
ment of his heart had proved a failure; his boyish ardour for the 
enfranchisement of a people had been without result; his literary 
efforts had met with little sympathy or recognition ; and, during the 
early months of the year, he had felt how frail was his hold on life, 
and had almost confronted that mystery which lies behind the veil of 
mortal existence" (Dowden's Life, Vol. I, p. 530). "In the spring of 
181 5," says Mrs. Shelley in her note on this poem, "an eminent physi- 
cian pronounced that he was dying rapidly of a consumption." The 
mood reflected in Alastor is the mood in which Shelley regarded his 
own past, with death staring him in the face. As he looks back on 
his life, he notes especially its isolation and apparent fruitlessness. 
He feels that he has been a creature alone and apart, pursuing aims 
which the mass of men do not understand, and thus cut off from the 
wholesome and stimulating sympathy of his fellows. This " self- 
centred seclusion," as he explains in the Preface to the poem, is not 
the result of a cold or egoistic nature ; he does not belong to the class 
described in the second paragraph of the Preface. His isolation is 
caused by the loftiness of his ideal and by his perfect devotion to it. 
He neglected attainable but imperfect good for the sake of ideal per- 
fections which forever escape his grasp. One form of this devotion to 
the ideal is the desire for complete sympathy of mind and feeling, such 
as would be afforded by a woman in perfect harmony with his own 
highest self ; it is this aspect of his eager but vain quest which is made 
especially prominent in Alastor. 

These experiences, then, of Shelley's spiritual life and this mood in 
which he regards them, form the substance of the poem ; the poet does 
not, however, describe these things directly : he symbolizes them in 



302 NOTES. 

the wanderings of an imaginary hero, and the intangible feelings and 
experiences of which we have spoken are concretely shadowed forth 
in descriptions of scenery. But these descriptions do not stand in the 
poem solely on account of their symbolic import ; the poet delights in 
them for their own sake, and so will the appreciative reader. To fol- 
low the course of a stream on foot or by boat was always to Shelley a 
peculiarly fascinating employment. In 1814 he had " visited some of 
the more magnificent scenes of Switzerland, and returned to England 
from Lucerne by the Reuss and Rhine. This river-navigation en- 
chanted him. In his favourite poem of Thalaba his imagination had 
been excited by the description of such a voyage " (Mrs. Shelley's 
note). In the beginning of September, 181 5, immediately before writ- 
ing Alasto7\ he had followed in a wherry the course of the Thames 
from Windsor almost to its source. The poem itself was written at 
Bishopsgate, on the borders of Windsor forest, amidst whose oaks he 
spent a great part of his time. From the stores of natural beauty thus 
accumulated in his mind, he shaped the scenery of the poem. But he 
does not realistically reproduce what he has observed. He modifies 
and combines elements derived from actual nature in order to reflect 
his own feelings and moods. But, although the journey of the hero 
symbolizes Shelley's own life, and the different scenes suggest the 
character of its various experiences, the reader must not attempt to 
press the symbolism too far. Alastor is not an allegory like the first 
two books of the Faery Queen; each circumstance does not have a 
definite allegorical meaning. But, rather, the poet, in the vaguer 
fashion of a musical composer, suggests and stimulates certain frames 
of mind and feeling through the use of concrete imagery. To appre- 
ciate the poem, we must catch its varying tone and spirit, not too 
inquisitively search for secondary senses. 

The blank verse of Alastor is evidently affected by the study of 
Wordsworth (cf. Tintern Abbey., for example), and the influence of the 
elder poet is apparent also occasionally in individual phrases : " natu- 
ral piety " (1. 3), " obstinate questionings " (1. 26), " too deep for tears " 
(1. 713). Southey's Thalaba, as Mrs. Shelley points out, was also a 
factor in the composition of Alastor, and Shelley may have read and 
got hints from Volney's Genie des Tonibeaiixy 

2 33. The lines with which the Preface closes are from Words- 
worth's Excursion, Book I. Shelley misquotes; the original has" And 
they " not " And those." 

1 Sources, parallel passages, etc., have been collected by Dr. Ackermann and M. 
Beljame ; see the Bibliography at end of this volume. 



NOTES. 303 

Alastor is a Greek word meaning an evil genius. Peacock, who sug- 
gested the title, explains, in his Memoirs of Shelley, that the poem is so 
called because the spirit of solitude is here treated as a spirit of evil. 
Alastor is not the name of the hero. 

3 1-9. The poet invokes the inspiration of Nature. 

3 2. Mother : Nature. 

3 16. This boast: the claims which the poet makes for himself in 
the preceding conditional clauses. 

3 18. Mother : see 1. 2. 

4 46. modulate : be in harmony with. 

4 50-66. A description of the hero; the most marked peculiarity of 
his life is its isolation. 

5 60-63. Cf. Longfellow's Excelsior. 

5 67-128. At 1. 67 the narrative of the hero's life begins; it em- 
bodies, partly in symbols, Shelley's spiritual autobiography, — his 
alienation from the opinions of those about him and his pursuit of 
truth through the study of science and of ancient literature. 

6 93. Frequent : thronged ; cf. Paradise Lost, I, 1. 797. 

6 101. Shelley himself preferred a purely vegetable diet, and advo- 
cated abstinence from animal food in a note to Queeti Afab, subse- 
quently printed as a separate pamphlet. 

6 118-120. M. Beljame in his edition of Alastor, p. 92, points out 
that Shelley had probably in mind the zodiac of Denderah, a ruined 
town of Upper Egypt, celebrated for a temple " with noble portico 
supported by twenty-four columns. The walls, columns, etc., are 
covered with figures and hieroglyphics. . . . On the ceiling of the 
portico are numerous mythological figures arranged in zodiacal fashion." 
In Volney's Riiines des Tombeaux mention is made of the zodiac of 
Denderah. 

6 120. This line refers to the hieroglyphics. 

7 129-139. These lines symbolize the neglect of human sympathy 
and affection. Note how purely ideal the framework of the poem is; 
we do not, even in imagination, feel that these events and scenes have 
any reality. 

7 140-191. Upon the poet's mind bursts the conception of ideal per- 
fection and beauty embodied in female form. Nothing will satisfy him but 
the finding of the counterpart of this ideal in the actual world. The search 
for this counterpart becomes the passion of his life, and is symbolized in 
the further wanderings of the hero. Cf. 11. 190-255 of Epipsychidioit. 

7 141. Carman ian : Carmania (modem Kerman), an eastern province 
of Persia, containing a frightful salt desert. 



304 NOTES. 

7 142. The mountains where the Indus and Oxus rise are the 
Hindu-Kush. 

7 145. the vale of Cashmire is the valley of the Upper Jhelum in 
northern India, proverbial for its beauty and fertility. 

9 193-6. An example of Shelley's power of suggesting a vast land- 
scape. 

9 211-222. If the ideal is unattainable in this life, may it not be ours 
after death ? 

9 219. Conduct : this is the reading of the original edition. Rossetti 
conjectures co}idiicts,\v\\\Q}i\ seems natural, as " vault " is the subject; 
but Forman suggests that " Shelley meant us to understand the rather 
outre construction, ' Does the bright arch lead, while does death's blue 
vault conduct,' etc." 

9 213-219. The connection of the two ideas here expressed seems to 
be : " If the beautiful reflection in the water allures to something so 
unlike itself as the black depths beneath, may not the ugly vault of 
death lead to something as unlike itself, — to the beautiful ideal 
world ? " 

10 227 ff. Such a conflict between an eagle and a serpent is described 
at length in stanzas viii ff. of The Revolt of Isla?fi, I. 

10 240. Aornos : in ancient times one of the chief cities of Bac- 
tria, near the northern foot of the Hindu-Kush Mountains. This and 
other of the proper names in the passage are evidently derived from 
the poet's reading in classical literature. 

Petra : the Petra referred to is probably the city situated on a lofty 
cliff in Sogdiana, mentioned in Quintus Curtius as taken by Alexander 
the Great. 

10 242. Balk: the modern name of Bactra, a city situated some- 
what to the east of Aornos. These two places are mentioned as the 
greatest cities of Bactria in Arrian's Expedition of Alexander (M. 
Beljame's edition, p. 112). 

where the desolated tombs, etc. : at Arbela, namely, a city in 
Adiabene in Assyria; the Emperor Caracalla dispersed the contents 
of the tombs of the Parthian kings to the winds (see Dion Cassitis, 
Ixxviii, I, cited by M. Beljame, p. 113). 

10 255-271. Cf. Longfellow's Excelsior. 

11 272. Chorasmian shore : in ancient times the Chorasmii dwelt 
to the south of the Aral Sea, and one would suppose that the shore of 
this lake is referred to. The description of the voyage and the refer- 
ence to the Caucasus (1. 377) would, however, lead us to suppose that 
the poet had in his mind the Caspian Sea. M. Beljame seems to 



NOTES. 305 

think that the shore of the Aral Sea is here referred to, but the Cas- 
pian in "sea-shore" of 1. 275. This would obviate the difficulty 
referred to below; but it is improbable that the writer would so 
abruptly omit all reference to the wanderer's journey from the Aral to 
the Caspian. In truth, it is needless to trouble ourselves to follow on 
the map the course of the hero's wanderings ; the poet selected, doubt- 
less, from his memories of classical history and literature, euphonious 
names which had suitable associations, more or less vague. 

11 272-5. The hero first pauses where the marshes begin, a point 
which may be roughly called the shore; then a strong impulse urges 
him to the actual shore, — the margin of the sea. 

12 293. Its precious charge: the vision described in 11. 148-191. 

12 294. a shadowy lure: the hope that the ideal might be found 
beyond death. 

13 338-9. Cf. 11. 3-4 of A Summer-evening Church-yard, — 

And pallid evening twines its beaming hair 

In duskier braids around the languid eyes of day. 

13 340 ff. In describing the voyage in the boat, Shelley had evi- 
dently in mind Thalaba, XI, stanzas 34 ff. 

14 363. The sea discharges itself through an underground passage 
which the boat follows ; at 1. 370 river and boat emerge into the open 
air. 

14 374-412. The flood plunges dowai a vast chasm, but a puff of 
wind carries the boat safely into a quiet cove. Here the hero leaves 
the boat; the rest of his journeying is on foot. 

15 412-413. Shelley seems sometimes to have decked his hair in this 
fashion ; see Introduction, p. Ix. 

15 412-420. Careless of everything else, he is driven onward by his 
yearning for the ideal. 

15 420 ff. A typical Shelleyan forest, with its vastness and eerie 
mystery; cf. the similar description in Rosalind and Helen, 11. 95 ff. 

16 445-8. The patches of sky seen through the foliage, by daylight 
or moonlight, change their shapes with the movement of the boughs. 

16 455-7. Cf. A Sum?ner-eve}iing Church-yard, 11. 5-6. 

17 457-468. Shelley is wont to dwell with particular delight on re- 
flections of scenery in the water ; see To Jane — 71ie Recollection, 
11. 53 ff. 

17 479-491. The hero feels himself in communion with the all-per- 
vading spirit of nature, but is drawn onward by the sense of the ideal. 



3o6 NOTES. 

17 484-6. Forman explains this : " The spirit, assuming for speech 
the undulating woods, etc., held commune with the poet." 

17 489-490. The eyes which he had beheld in dream still seemed to 
hover over him. 

18 493. The hero now follows the downward course of a rivulet 
which has its source in the well mentioned in 1. 457. 

19 528. windlestrae : the stalks of certain grasses; the ordinary 
form is " windlestraw." Scott {^Old Mo7-taiity, c\\^^. vi) makes Lady 
Bellenden say: "I had rather the rigs of Tillietudlem bare naething 
but windlestraes and sandy lavrocks." 

19 533-9. Here the poet seems to indicate the meaning of his 
symbolism. 

19 535. irradiate : shining, brilliant. 

19 543-550. This obscure passage has been much discussed. Mr. 
Rossetti explains: " Rocks rose, lifting their pinnacles ; and the precipice 
(precipitous sides or archway) of the ravine, obscuring the said ravine 
with its shadow, did unclose (opened, was rifted), aloft, amid toppling 
stones," etc. The interpretation of ' disclosed ' seems farfetched. 

Mr. Swinburne says {Essays ajid Studies^ p. 197): "I suspect the 
word ' its ' to be wrong, and either a blind slip of the pen or a printer's 
error. If it is not and we are to assume that there is any break in the 
sentence, the parenthesis must surely extend thus far: 'its precipice 
obscuring the ravine'; i.e., the rocks opened or 'disclosed ' where the 
precipices above the ravine obscured it. But I take ' disclosed ' to be 
the participle : ' its precipice darkened the ravine (which was) disclosed 
above.' The sentence is left hanging loose and ragged, short by a line 
at least, and never wound up to any end at all. Such a sentence we, 
too, certainly find, once at least, in the Prometheus Unboicnd, II, iv, 
12-18." 

Mr. Forman suggests, but does not read, " amidst precipices," for 
" and its precipices " ; he further connects ' obscuring ' with ' rocks,' 
'disclosed' (as a participle) with 'ravine,' 'amid toppling stones,' etc., 
with ' lifted.' 

Professor Dowden, in a letter quoted in the preface to Mr. Dobell's 
reprint of Alastor, explains the passage as follows : " As the ravine 
narrows, its rocky sides rise in height, so that the ravine grows dark 
below from the sheer height of its precipitous sides; but above, in the 
rocky heights, can be discerned openings in the crags, and caverns, 
amid which the voice of the stream echoes. Such is the sense I get, 
and I extract it from Shelley's text by considering the relative ^which ' 
following ' rocks ' as nominative, not only to the verb ' lifted,^ but also 



NOTES. ZO'] 

to the verb ' disclosed ' ; and this verb ' disclosed ' has as its accusative 
or object the words ' black gulphs and yawning caves.' The words 
' its precipice obscuring the ravine,' I take to be parenthetical, and as 
meaning the height of its rocky sides daj-kening the ravine. Pointed 
thus, my meaning may be clearer : 

On every side now rose ' 

Rocks, which, in unimaginable forms 
Lifted their black and barren pinnacles 
In the light of evening, and (its precipice 
Obscuring the ravine) disclosed above 
('Mid toppUng stones) black gulphs, etc. 

I separate ' toppling stones,' as governed by the preposition ' 'mid' from 
' black gulphs' etc., which is governed by the verb 'disclosed.' 'Above' 
is an adverb, not a preposition, and means in the upper region'' 

The objection to Professor Dowden's explanation is the putting of 
the " black gulphs " and " yawning caves " at the top of the ravine. 
But either this explanation or Mr. Swinburne's suggestion that the 
sentence is left unfinished seems to be the best solution of the 
difficulty. 

20 .589-596. One human step : the step of the hero. One voice must 
also be the hero's voice, though, as Mr. Rossetti says {Shelley Society's 
Note Book, p. 22), " It is rather anomalous to say that his own voice 
led his form." Mr. Rossetti suggests, as a possible explanation, that, 
since the voice " inspired the echoes," it may have been by following 
the echoes that the hero found the nook. 

21 602-5. its mountains : the mountains on the " horizon's verge." 
The moon was low in the horizon ; its light flowed from behind the 
mountains, and illuminated the mist which filled the atmosphere. 

21 610. sightless : invisible ; cf. Epipsychidion, 1. 240. 

21 611. Skeleton : the " Skeleton " is Death, as we see from 1. 619. 

21 612. its : the career of the storm mentioned in 1. 610. 

21 619-624. The meaning of this passage appears to be that if Death 
will devour all that Ruin has made ready for him, he will be satisfied, 
and will no more make sudden and violent attacks. Men would, in 
that case, die by the natural slow processes of age, like flowers. 

22 650. divided : the horns of the moon are divided by the inter- 
vention of a " jagged hill," as is shown by 1. 654. 

23 667-671. The hero is compared to a lute, a bright stream, a 
dream of youth ; the lute is " still," the stream is " dark and dry," the 
dream is " unremembered." 



3o8 NOTES. 

23 672. Medea : the daughter of Aetes, king of Colchis, and wife of 
Jason, the winner of the Golden Fleece; she possessed magical powers. 
In this reference to her " wondrous alchemy," the poet is thinking of 
Ovid's Metamorphoses, VII, 257-285, where it is related tliat under the 
influence of Medea's incantation: Vernat humus, floresque et mollia 
pabula surgunt (1. 284). 

23 676. the chalice : of immortality. 

23 677. one living man : the Wandering Jew, to whom immortality 
was given as a curse. The Wandering Jew was often in Shelley's 
mind ; in boyhood he wrote a poem on the subject ; and the Jew 
figures, also, both in Queen Mab and in Hellas. 

23 678. Vessel of deathless wrath: cf. Romans, ix. 22: " What if 
God, willing to shew his wrath and to make his power known, endured 
with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction." 

23 681. the dream : that there is an elixir of life. 

24 709-710. speak, etc. : show their lack of power by their feeble 
attempts to image this woe. 

24 713. deep for tears : 

To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. 

(Wordsworth's Ode on Iniiinaitons of Immortality) 



A SUMMER-EVENING CIIURCII-YARD. 

*' The summer evening that suggested to him the poem written in 
the church-yard of Lechlade occurred during his voyage up the Thames, 
in the autumn of 181 5" (Mrs. Shelley's note). For a description of 
this voyage, see Uowden's Life., Vol. I, pp. 526-530. 

25 13. aerial Pile : the clouds above the setting sun. 



LINES ("The cold earth slept below"). 

Given under the title "November, 181 5," in The Literary Pocket- 
book for 1823. " There can be no great rashness in suggesting that the 
subject of the poem is the death of Harriet Shelley, who drowned her- 
self on the 9th of November, 18 16. In that case, 18 13 and raven hair 
were used as a disguise, Harriet's hair having been a light brown " 
(Forman's note). 

26 17. raven : Mrs. Shelley's edition reads tangled. 



NOTES. 309 



TO WORDSWORTH. 

In the earlier stages of the French Revolution Wordsworth strongly 
sympathized with the party of progress; subsequently he became in- 
tensely conservative. The events of the time and the innate tenden- 
cies of Wordsworth's mind sufficiently account for this change ; but 
some radical enthusiasts of the day regarded him as a deserter, and 
his acceptance of an appointment under the government in 1S13 caused 
an outburst of indignation against him among these more ardent 
spirits. The change in Wordsworth's attitude to political questions 
also suggested PJrowning's Lost Leader. 



HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY. 

Mrs. Shelley tells us that this poem w^as conceived during Shelley's 
voyage with Lord Byron around the Lake of Geneva in the summer of 
18 16. In the conception of " Intellectual Beauty " we have a thought 
characteristic of Shelley and recurring continually in his works. The 
idea is borrowed from Plato, and will be best grasped through the 
reading of Diotima's speech in Plato's Symposuim, as translated by 
Shelley himself (see in Forman's edition of the Prose Works, Vol. Ill, 
especially pp. 219-222). In this speech Diotima explains how the love 
of beautiful objects leads on to the love of the beautiful in soul and 
thought, and, finally, to the conception of universal beauty, of perfect 
abstract beauty, "eternal, unproduced, indestructible; neither subject 
to increase nor decay ; not, like other things, partly beautiful and 
partly deformed; not at one time beautiful and at another time not; 
not beautiful in relation to one thing and deformed in relation to an- 
other; not here beautiful and there deformed; not beautiful in the 
estimation of one person and deformed in that of another ; nor can 
this siipreme beauty be figured to the imagination like a beautiful face, 
or beautiful hands, or any portion of the body, nor like any discourse, 
nor any science. Nor does it subsist in any other that lives and is, 
either in earth, or in heaven, or in any other place ; but it is eternally 
uniform and consistent, and monoeidic wdth itself. All other things 
are beautiful through a participation of it, with this condition, that, 
although they are subject to production and decay, it never becomes 
more or less, or endures any change. When any one, ascending from 
the correct system of Love, begins to contemplate this supreme beauty, 



3IO NOTES. 

he already touches the consummation of his labour. For such as dis- 
cipline themselves upon this system, or are conducted by another 
beginning to ascend through these transitory objects which are beauti- 
ful, towards that which is beauty itself, proceeding as on steps from 
the love of one form to that of two, and from that of two, to that of 
all forms which are beautiful ; and from beautiful forms to beautiful 
habits and institutions, and from institutions to beautiful doctrines ; 
until, from the meditation of many doctrines, they arrive at that which 
is nothing else than the doctrine of supreme beauty itself, in the knowl- 
edge and contemplation of which at length they repose." 

Through the perception of such beauty, the soul receives, according 
to Shelley, its highest and best stimulus. The desire of this beauty 
lifts us above the petty and ignoble. Unfortunately, it is only at times 
that we are fully conscious of it. Its absence is lamented, and its 
power celebrated in the Hymit before us. It will be noted that there 
is a certain parallelism between this poem and Wordsworth's Ode on 
Intimations of Im7nortality ; in the latter Wordsworth laments the 
vanishing in mature life of the perception of the divine beauty of the 
universe. 

28 5. shower is a verb here. 

28 25-36. The attempts to solve the mystery of the universe have 
failed; nothing serves to lighten the world except the perception of the 
beauty which lies behind it. 

28 26. these responses : the responses to the questions of stanza ii. 

29 45. The simile seems scarcely appropriate. 
29 49-52. Cf. Alastor, 11. 23-29. 

29 50-51. Shelley probably pronounced ' pursuing ' pnrsiiin'' ; at 
the present time in England this is at once a fashionable and a vulgar 
error. The same imperfect rhyme is found in Wordsworth, e.g., Ode 
on Intimations of Im77iortality, 11. 43-46. 

30 73 ff. Compare the opening of the last stanza of Wordsworth's 
Ode on the Intimations of Immortality. 



ON FANNY GODWIN. 

Fanny Godwin (daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and adopted by 
William Godwin, hence the elder half-sister of Mary Shelley) poisoned 
herself October 9, 1816. She was of a tender, melancholy nature, and 
the only reason she assigned for her act was that she brought trouble 
to others. Shelley had seen her a short time before her death. 



NOTES. 311 



OZYMANDIAS. 



First published in The Examiner of January 11, 1818. The Greek 
historian Diodorus gives an account of the statue referred to in the poem. 
It was reputed, he says, the largest in Egypt, the foot exceeding seven 
cubits in length ; the inscription was, " I am Ozymandias, king of 
kings ; if any one wishes to know what I am and where I lie, let him' 
surpass me in some of my exploits " (see Diodorics, I, 47 ; or Wilkin- 
son's Ancient Egypt, Vol. I, chap. ii). 

The freedom, or even carelessness, of Shelley's treatment of the 
laws of the regular sonnet and the success of the poem, notwithstand- 
ing, are characteristic of his art. Presumably, lines 2 and 4, 9 and 11 
are intended to rhyme. 

31 7. survive : inasmuch as they are depicted on the features of 
the statue. 

31 8. The hand : of the sculptor. 

them : the passions. 

the heart : of the monarch. 



PASSAGE OF THE APENNINES. 

32 9. lay : note the violation of grammar for the sake of rhyme, 
and cf. Byron's Childe Harold, IV, 1. 1620. 



LINES WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS. 

This poem was written at a villa near Este where the Shelleys lived 
for a short time during the autumn of 1818. "We looked from the 
garden," writes Mrs. Shelley, " over the plains of Lombardy, bounded 
to the west by the far Apennines, while to the east the horizon was lost 
in misty distance." A few weeks before this poem was written the 
Shelleys had been in Venice, where Byron was then living. There 
their infant daughter died. Sorrow and ill health combined to make 
this a season of deep depression to the poet. 

34 43. are : the grammar is defective. 

34 45-65. These lines contain a concrete illustration of the asser- 
tions in the passage immediately preceding. 



312 NO TES. 

34 47-48. The bones still occupy the position which was given to 
them when the unhappy wretch stretched himself out for the last time. 

35 71-89. " I saw once from a tower that overlooked two rookeries, 
this very thing. The moment the sun's disk had fully climbed over 
the edge of a distant wood, the whole band of rooks, from both their 
homes, silent before, rose, all the birds together, with a great ' hail,' 
into the air, and, hovering for a second or two, streamed down the 
wind towards the sun" (Stopford Brooke's note). 

36 97. Amphitrite : a daughter of Oceanus. 

36 114. If there is a reference to any particular temple here, it is 
probably that at Delphi, where Apollo chiefly uttered his oracles ; in a 
Greek temple there would not be a dome. 

37 122-133. Venice was at this time under the dominion of Austria. 

38 152. Celtic Anarch : Austria. The Celts for a long time repre- 
sented the northern barbarians to the Romans, and here the term Celtic 
seems to be applied vaguely to the northern barbarians as distinguished 
from the natives of Italy. 

38 167-205. This passage on Byron was interpolated after the MS. 
of the poem had been sent to the printer. 

39 195. Scamander : a river near Troy. 

39 200-1. Arqua, where Petrarch, the great Italian poet (1304-74) 
lived, died, and is buried, is in the neighborhood. 

39 206. It will be noted that the poem follows the course of the 
day. 

40 219-230. These lines refer to Italy being under foreign domina- 
tion. 

40 238. In speaking of Sin and Death here, the poet is probably 
thinking of these personages as described in Paradise Lost, II, 11. 648 ff. 

40 239. Ezzelin: EzzeHno da Romano (11 94-1 259), a famous Ghi- 
belline chief. In the Divine Comedy he is represented by Dante as 
among the tyrants w^ho are expiating the sin of cruelty. 

42 292. The point, etc.: the zenith. 

42 296-8. The reference is to the coloring of foliage by the action 
of frost. 

42 315-319. The poet has been saying that the plains, leaves, vines, 
etc., and even his own sad spirit, are all interpenetrated and lightened 
" by the glory of the sky." What that " glory of the sky " is he does 
not venture to define ; whether it is love, or light, etc., or the universal 
spirit of beauty which exists in all these things, or something which 
the poet's own mind bestows upon external objects, — that mind which 
by its imaginative power lends life to the dead universe. The whole 



NOTES. 313 

passage is a poetic expression for the fact that Shelley, as he gazes 
npon the scene, forgets the sadness of his life, and feels the joy and 
beauty of the world about him ; there is, in addition, a suggestion of 
Shelley's mystical philosophy. 

43 333. its: the antecedent is "the frail bark of this lone being." 
43 342-373. Cf. the description of the island in Epipsychidion, 11. 
422 ff. 



SONNET (" Lift not the painted veil "). 

Although the phenomena of life are merely the superficial appear- 
ances which conceal the real forces that lie beneath, do not seek to 
penetrate beyond the former. All that you will attain will be vague 
conjectures which spring from your hopes and fears. 

44 1. The same metaphor is employed in the Essay on Life {Prose 
Works, Vol. II, p. 259) in speaking of the philosophical theory that 
nothing exists except as it is perceived, — a theory held by the poet 
himself. 

44 6. sightless : invisible; frequently used in this sense by Shelley; 
cf. Alastor, 1. 610. 



STANZAS WRITTEN IN DEJECTION. 

Speaking of the period when this poem was composed, Mrs. Shelley 
says : "At this time Shelley suffered greatly in health. . . . Constant 
and poignant physical suffering exhausted him ; and though he pre- 
served the appearance of cheerfulness, and often greatly enjoyed our 
wanderings in the environs of Naples, and our excursions on its sunny 
sea, yet many hours were passed when his thoughts shadowed by ill- 
ness, became gloomy, and then he escaped to solitude, and in verses 
which he hid from fear of wounding me, poured forth morbid but too 
natural bursts of discontent and sadness. . . . We lived in utter soli- 
tude — and such is often not the nurse of cheerfulness." Medwin con- 
nects this poem with the fate of the mysterious lady who is said to 
have followed the poet from England to Naples, and to have died 
there (see Dowden's Life, Vol. II, p. 252). 

46 22. Shelley may have had some particular " sage " in mind, but 
such content is a common attribute of sages, — of the Stoics, for 
example. 



314 NOTES. 

47 37-45. Some might lament me, should I die, as I shall lament the 
departure of this beautiful day ; but the memory of the day will be a 
source of joy — not so, the memory of me. 



PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. 

The First Act of Prometheus Unbound was written at Este (see 
Introduction, p. Ixiii) in the autumn of 18 18, when the memory of the 
passage through the Alps in the previous spring M'as fresh in the 
poet's mind, and was completed, or nearly so, early in October. In a 
letter firom Milan of April 30, he writes that he has on his journey read 
two or three plays of Euripides (see Dowden's Life, Vol. II, p. 201), 
and Mrs. Shelley says : " The Greek tragedians were his most familiar 
companions in his wanderings, and the sublime majesty of ^Eschylus 
filled him with wonder and delight " (Dowden's Life, Vol. II, p. 239). 
The Second and Third Acts were written in Rome, especially among the 
ruins of the Baths of Caracalla (see Preface, p. 50, and Introduction, 
pp. Ixiv, v), during the early months of the year 1819. On April 6 
he writes to Peacock : " My Prometheus is just finished, and in a 
month or two I shall send it. It is a drama with characters and 
mechanism of a kind yet unattempted, and I think the execution is 
better than any of my former attempts." The Fourth Act was an 
afterthought, written at Florence during the latter part of the same 
year. 

In this work Shelley makes use of an old Greek myth already em- 
ployed for dramatic purposes by ^schylus in his Prometheus Bound. 
To this work of iEschylus the poem of vShelley is indebted for its 
general form, for the situation and scenery of the First Act, and for 
some individual phrases and passages.^ Although Shelley's Prometheus 
approaches rather the type of Greek tragedy than of the English national 
drama, it does not attempt, as Samson Agonistes, accurately to reproduce 
the form of a Greek play. It is, further, not a drama in the ordinary 
sense ; the poet himself indicates this in calling it a " lyrical drama." It 
is a poem which depicts through characters and dialogues, not external 
life, but the general conceptions of the writer's mind and the feelings 
which these conceptions awaken in him. Here Shelley gives a view of 

^ See Dr. R. Ackermann's Studien ilber Shelley's Promethetcs Unbotcnd in Englische 
SUcdien, Band xvi, for a collection of original and parallel passages from ^Eschylus, etc.; 
also the comparison between the two plays in Miss Scudder's edition. 



NOTES. 315 

the history of the universe, past and to come, as Milton gives another 
view of the same subject in Paradise Lost. The Prometheus gives 
expression to philosophical ideas which were current in France before 
the Revolution in the form which they took in Shelley's mind ; Para- 
dise Lost, to the philosophy of Puritanism as conceived by Milton. 

Upon the meaning of the poem, the following extract from Mrs. 
Shelley's notes will serve to throw some light : " The prominent feature 
of Shelley's theory of the destiny of the human species was, that evil 
is not inherent in the system of the creation, but an accident that 
might be expelled. This also forms a portion of Christianity; God 
made earth and man perfect, till he, by his fall 

' Brought death into the world and all our woe.' 

Shelley believed that mankind had only to will that there should be no 
evil, and there would be none. It is not my part in these notes to 
notice the arguments that have been urged against this opinion, but to 
mention the fact that he entertained it, and was indeed attached to it 
with fervent enthusiasm. That man could be so perfectionized as to 
be able to expel evil from his own nature, and from the greater part 
of the creation, was the cardinal point of his system. And the subject 
he loved best to dwell on, was the image of One warring with the Evil 
Principle, oppressed not only by it, but by all, even the good, who were 
deluded into considering evil a necessary portion of humanity. A 
victim full of fortitude and hope, and the spirit of triumph emanating 
from a reliance on the ultimate omnipotence of good. Such he had 
depicted in his last poem \^The Revolt of Lslai}i\ when he made Laon 
the enemy and the victim of tyrants. He now took a more idealized 
image of the same subject. He followed certain classical authorities 
in figuring Saturn as the good principle, Jupiter the usurping evil one, 
and Prometheus as the regenerator, who unable to bring mankind 
back to primitive innocence, used knowledge as a weapon to defeat 
evil, by leading mankind beyond the state wherein they are sinless 
through ignorance, to that in which they are virtuous through wisdom. 
Jupiter punished the temerity of the Titan by chaining him to a rock of 
Caucasus, and causing a vulture to devour his still renewed heart. 
There was a prophecy afloat in heaven portending the fall of Jove, 
the secret of averting which was known only to Prometheus ; and the 
god offered freedom from torture on condition of its being communi- 
cated to him. According to the mythological story, this referred to 
the offspring of Thetis, who was destined to be greater than his father. 
Prometheus at last bought pardon for his crime of enriching mankind 



3l6 NOTES. 

with his gifts, by reveaUng the prophecy. Hercules killed the vulture 
and set him free, and Thetis was married to Peleus, the father of 
Achilles. 

Shelley adapted the catastrophe of this story to his peculiar views. 
The son, greater than his father, born of the nuptial of Jupiter and 
Thetis, was to dethrone Evil, and bring back a happier reign than that 
of Saturn. Prometheus defies the power of his enemy, and endures 
centuries of torture, till the hour arrives when Jove, blind to the real 
event, but darkly guessing that some great good to himself will flow, 
espouses Thetis. At the moment, the Primal Power of the world 
drives him from his usurped throne, and Strength in the person of 
Hercules, liberates Humanity, typified in Prometheus, from the tortures 
generated by evil done or suffered. Asia, one of the Oceanides, is the 
wife of Prometheus, — she was, according to other mythological inter- 
pretations, the same as Venus and Nature. When the Benefactor of 
Mankind is liberated. Nature resumes the beauty of her prime, and is 
united to her husband, the emblem of the human race, in perfect and 
happy union. In the ^urth Act, the poet gives further scope to his 
imagination, and idealizes the forms of creation, such as we know 
them, instead of such as they appeared to the Greeks. Maternal 
Earth, the mighty Parent, is superseded by the Spirit of the Earth — 
the guide of our planet through the realms of the sky — while his fair 
and weaker companion and attendant, the Spirit of the Moon, receives 
bliss from the annihilation of Evil in the superior sphere." 

Such are the main ideas expressed or implied in this drama. Men 
lived originally in a state of nature, without social organization and 
institutions. This period, which the nineteenth century regards as 
one of violence and misery, Rousseau and his school depicted as a 
time of innocence and bliss. In the ancient myth, Shelley found an 
analogue for this phase of human history in the Golden Age of the 
reign of Saturn. But, if men were then innocent and happy, they 
were also childish and undeveloped. In course of time came prog- 
ress ; they acquired the arts of life, material comforts, political insti- 
tutions, religious conceptions. So far good ; but, unfortunately, all 
ideas and institutions have a tendenc y to crystallize, to survive their 
usefulness, to cramp the individual and to hinder the further develop- 
ment of society, — to produce, in short, tyranny, social, political, and 
religious. It was this pernicious side of established things that almost 
exclusively held the attention of the thinkers who stimulated the French 
Revolution. The iniquitous conditions amidst which they lived led 
them to regard all institutions as evil, and not only as an evil, but 



NOTES. 317 

as the source of all other evil. Could men but rid themselves of 
these, human nature — fundamentally good, as was assumed — would 
regain the innocence and happiness of the Golden Age, Shelley, in 
this poem, personifies institutions, or authority, as Jupiter, who, in 
accordance with the views just unfolded, is identical with the prin- 
ciple of evil. His overthrow is necessary for the regeneration of 
mankind. Now, as this school of thinkers identified authority and 
established power with the source of evil, so they naturally found in 
their antithesis — revolution or liberty — the principle of good. In 
the nineteenth century, we regard liberty as desirable, because it is a 
condition necessary for the development of good ; but, for the typical 
thought of the eighteenth century, it was an ultimate and highest 
good. So with Shelley : Prometheus, the opponent of Jupiter, personi- 
fies the spirit of resistance, of revolution, and consequently, also, the 
spirit of good. Prometheus, as depicted in the ancient fable, was 
further adapted to Shelley's purpose, because he was represented, not 
merely as the assertor of freedom against the tyranny of Jove, but 
also as the benefactor of men, who bestowed upon them the arts of 
life. This very spirit of revolution and of beneficence it was which 
raised men above the undeveloped condition of a state of nature, l)y 
originating the organization of men, — a thing in itself highly beneficial, 
though in course of time it checked individual freedom and degenerated 
into tyranny. Hence, the poet represents (Act I, 380 ; H, iv, 43-45) 
Jupiter as deriving his power originally from Prometheus ; who gave 
Jove all authority, provided men were left free. That is, institutions 
should be thoroughly plastic, not checking the liberty of individuals 
either in the internal sphere of thought or in the external sphere of 
action. But this condition imposed by Prometheus was not observed ; 
hence tyranny and the consequent degradation of human nature. The 
second great period in the history of the race is thus inaugurated, — 
the period in which Shelley regarded himself as living, when evil is 
seated in the places of power, and good is weak and shackled. This is 
the condition of things symbolically presented in Act I of the drama ; 
the situation affords the poet an opportunity for the expression of 
those feeUngs with which he witnessed the injustice, the hatred, the 
sufferings of men about him. The torments of Prometheus arise from 
the contemplation of misery and wickedness among men, especially 
from the perception of that saddest fact that evil is often the outcome 
of good intentions ; as illustrated, for example, in Shelley's view, by 
the history of Christianity and of the French Revolution (Act I, 498- 
655)- 



3i8 ^ NOTES. 

In the First Act the main action (if action it may be called) as dis- 
tinguished from the situation, lies in the revoking of the curse. The 
poet in this emphasizes a needful change in the spirit of revolution, — 
the change from hatred and violence to the spirit of meekness and love 
(cf. the quotation from a letter of Shelley, p. Ixvi of this volume). 

In the old myth, Prometheus was espoused to an ocean nymph ; 
Shelley calls her Asia. Asia represents the ideal, the ideal which had 
been attained in the Golden Age, when Prometheus and Asia dwelt 
together ; and which will be attained again when evil is finally over- 
thrown. This ideal for which the highest natures yearn, that which 
encourages them in their struggle with evil, is, for Shelley, the spirit of 
beauty, as we see in the Hymn to Intellechial Beauty and elsewhere. 
This spirit is in the Adonais identified with the Uranian Venus. The 
conception embodied in Asia is, therefore, wide and elastic ; as are the 
conceptions embodied in Jupiter and Prometheus. Asia is beauty, love, 
the ideal ; again she is the feminine type as related to the masculine 
Prometheus ; so she is feeling as opposed to intellect or wisdom. In 
vEschylus, Prometheus is comforted by the presence of the Ocean- 
idae ; so in Shelley's poem, the two sisters of Asia, Panthea and lone, 
soothe and encourage the hero and act as messengers between him 
and Asia. Their functions indicate that they represent faith and hope, 
and, with Asia, make up the familiar triad, faith, hope, and love. 

Of the Second Act, Asia is the central figure. In her relation to 
Prometheus, she is primarily the ideal, the spirit of beauty ; but in her 
independent action, she is rather the impersonation of love, or, more 
broadly, of the emotional nature of man. The Second Act represents 
her as pursuing and attaining truth ; when she has attained it, the new 
era begins. The two prerequisites of the new era are symbolized in the 
respective attitudes of Asia and of Prometheus ; when the emotional 
nature of man is centred about the true, and when the revolutionary 
spirit has learned to abjure violence, the overthrow of evil is assured. 
Asia is stimulated in her quest by the visions of faith (Act II, sc. i). 
The revelation of truth comes from Demogorgon. 

Demogorgon is an important but very vague character in the drama. 
Shelley's philosophy was mainly negative ; its constructive ideas were 
meagre ; so the portion of the poem that symbolizes the reconstructive 
and represents the future, is ill defined. The nature of the catastrophe 
and of the force that brings it about are not clearly indicated ; and, 
apart from symbolism, the fall of Jupiter is not dramatically effective. 

There is a tendency in Shelley, perceptible in the Adonais., for example, 
towards dualism. On the one hand, there is the frame of the universe 



NOTES. 319 

— call it matter, force, or law — eternal and necessary existence. On 
the other hand, there is spirit, which works in and through this frame 
of things, as the soul works within the body — free, yet limited and 
hampered by its instrument. This fundamental fact behind all others, 
this fixed frame of the universe — necessity or fate — is shadowed forth 
in Demogorgon. From Demogorgon, then, i.e.y from an investigation 
of the constitution of the universe, of the fixed course of things, Asia 
learns the truths unfolded in the Fourth Scene. As the fundamental 
note of the First Act is patient endurance, so that of the Second Act is 
joyful advance and attainment. 

The Third Act presents the catastrophe. Jupiter we^s Thetis ; from 
the offspring of this union he expects some great advantage to himself. 
Instead of this, however, Demogorgon appears and drags Jupiter down 
into the unfathomable gulf. This appears to mean that tyranny by the 
full attainment of its own aims brings ruin upon itself; the fall of 
evil when it has reached a climax is involved in the very constitution 
of the universe. Demogorgon, i.e., necessity, who has existed from all 
eternity, appears as the particular result of Jove's act, — is incarnated 
as the offspring of his union with Thetis. Evil having fallen, Pro- 
metheus is set free by Hercules (strength). Shelley's natural tend- 
ency is to disregard physical force, and the part of Hercules is not a 
prominent one, nor does he have any share in the overthrow of Jupiter, 
who falls rather by the inner necessity of his nature. The remainder 
of the poem is occupied with a description of the renovated universe 
and with a triumphal chorus to celebrate the reign of beauty and good. 

This crude and hard outline of the meaning of the poem is given in 
order that the student may grasp more readily its general purpose and 
line of thought, and so be in a better position to appreciate its poetic beau- 
ties. But the Prometheus must not be regarded as a puzzle to be solved 
by ingenious interpretations, nor must the allegory be forced, especially 
in details. The poem is much more a medium for the expression of 
emotions with regard to certain great subjects than an expedient for 
the systematic statement of a philosophy.i Further, its greatness is 
lyric, not dramatic. In her introduction to the poem. Miss Scudder 
admirably says : " His [Shelley's] is not the Shakespearean power of 
dramatic construction, dependent on the clash of character with events ; 
neither is it exactly the intellectual power shown in a noble develop- 
ment of thought — experience like Tennyson's in hi Memoriam. Shel- 
ley's power is more akin to that of the musician. . . . The unity of 
the poem then, since akin to the unity of music, is primarily emotional." 
^ Compare the poet's statement in the Preface (p. 53). 



32 o NOTES. 



ACT I. 

Scene. The scene suggested is similar to that of ^schykis's Pro- 
metheus Vinctus. Compare also Shelley's Journal, March 26, 1S18 : 
" After dinner we ascended Les Echelles, winding along a road cut 
through perpendicular rocks, of immense elevation. . . . The rocks, 
which cannot be less than a thousand feet in perpendicular height, 
sometimes overhang the road on each side, and almost shut out the 
sky. The scene is like that described in the Prometheus of yEschy- 
lus : — vast rifts and caverns in the granite precipices ; wintry moun- 
tains with ice and snow above ; the loud sounds of unseen waters 
within the caverns, and walls of toppling rocks, only to be scaled as he 
describes, by the winged chariot of the ocean nymphs." 

54 2. But One: Prometheus himself; cf. 1. 265. 

54 9. eyeless in hate : blind in thy hatred ; the phrase belongs to 
"thou" (1. 10). 

54 15. The versification is defective ; Mr. Forman suggests that 
"empire" should be pronounced as a trisyllable, or that " empery " 
should be read ; cf. Letter to Maria Gisborne, 1. 34. 

55 25-52. Cf. yEschylus, Pro7n. Vinct., 11. 88-99. 

w Sros alQy]p /cat rax^T^T^pot irvoal., 
TTora/xQp T€ TTiryal ttovtlwv re kv/jLoltcov 
dv/jpidfxov yeXacrfxa, irafXfxrJTdp re yrj, 
Kal rbv TravoTTTTjv kvkXou i]\iov KaXQ- 
tbeadi /x ola irpbs 6eQp irdax^ debs. 
***** 
0ei) (}>€d, TO Trapbv rb t €irepxbp.evov 
TTTjixa arevax^. 

55 32. moon-freezing : freezing in the moonlight. 

55 34. Heaven's winged hound : The vulture, which, according to 
the old story, tore the entrails of Prometheus ; the phrase is a trans- 
lation from ^schylus : Atos be tol irTrji'bs kvwp Sa^oiws dfros {Provi. 
Vinct., 11. 102 1-2). 

55 44-47. Cf. Projn. Vinct., 11. 23-25. 

56 53-59. The change from hatred to pity seems to be the first step 
towards the release of Prometheus. 

56 54. Forman suggests that both metre and sense would be im- 
proved by the omission of " the." 
56 62. wrinkling : shrivelling. 



NOTES. 321 

56 73-111. As the curse predicted the fall of the tyrant, the horroi 
and misery of the speakers were not due to personal considerations ; 
it must have been the mere terror and awfulness of the curse that 
overcame them. 

58 104. For the rhyme, cf. Hyjiin to Intellectual Beauty, 11. 50-51, 
with note. 

58 124. informs : animates ; cf. Tennyson's Freedom^ stanza i : 

O Thou so fair in summers gone, 

While yet thy fresh and virgin soul 
Informed the pillar'd Parthenon, 

The glittering Capitol. 

59 137. love : probably for lovest (so Swinburne interprets) ; cf. 
The Skylark, 1. 80, " Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety " ; 
also Epipsychidioii, 1. 369. It has been suggested that " love " is a 
noun, the subject of is moving near ; this seems feeble. Mr. Rossetti 
ingeniously suggests: Jove — how cursed I him? but this is not in 
the style of Shelley. Mr. Forman interprets "love" in the first 
person, I love. 

61 191-209. The idea of a world of shades may have been suggested 
by Plato's notion of archetypes. What purpose or deeper meaning Shel- 
ley had in introducing this idea into the poem is not very clear. All 
things which have existed, still continue to live in the past, as we say ; 
they maintain what may be called a shadowy existence, and may be 
evoked by memory ; so with Prometheus's curse, which is dead so far as 
its author is concerned. The source of the reference to Zoroaster has 
not been discovered. Shelley himself had a vision of his own spectre, 
but at a time subsequent to the writing of Prornetheiis (see Dowden's 
Life, Vol. II, p. 516). 

62 212. Hades or Typhon : the former word is here used for 
Pluto, the presiding divinity of Hades, or the lower world, as in 
Paradise Lost, II, 1. 964. Typhon, one of the monsters of the 
primitive world, is described by Prometheus himself {Prom. Vinct, 
11. 354 ff.) as hurled beneath Mount iEtna by Zeus for resisting 
the gods. 

64 272-3. Authority gets the right from men to control them ex- 
ternally, but one man cannot confer on another the power of self- 
control or power over the will of others. 

65 294. Both : both evil and good deeds. 

65 295. thou and solitude are in the same construction as " uni- 
verse " in the preceding line. 



32 2 NOTES. 

66 324. A serpent-cinctured wand : the rod entwined with two 
serpents borne by Mercury, and known as the Cadiicetcs. 

68 342. the Son of Mala : Mercury, the herald of Jove. The 
attitude of Mercury towards Prometheus is similar to that of Hephaes- 
tus in the Prometheus Vincttis. 

68 346-7. Geryon, etc. : monsters of classical fable. 

68 348-350. The Sphinx propounded a riddle to the Thebans as 
they passed, and slew those who could not guess it. At length Gidipus 
solved the riddle and delivered Thebes. He was rewarded with the 
hand of Queen Jocasta, — the two, although the fact was not known, 
being really mother and son. The consequence of this incestuous union 
was a series of dire calamities, which afforded favorite themes for Greek 
tragedy. 

68 353. Cf. the words of Hephaestus in Prom. Vinct., 1. 19. 

69 371-3. In ^schylus, also, Prometheus knows such a secret ; 
see Prom. Vinct., 11. 947-8. 

69 375-6. The secret when revealed will be an intercessor on be- 
half of Prometheus. This is a striking example in miniature of Shel- 
ley's mythopoeic faculty (cf. note on The Cloud, p. 341). 

69 385. crystal-winged snow : cf. X^vKo-Kripi^ vKpddi (white-winged 
snow) in Proju. Vinct., 1. 993. 

70 398. " Damocles having extolled the great felicity of Dionysius 
on account of his wealth and power, the tyrant invited him to try what 
his happiness really was, and placed him at a magnificent banquet, 
in the midst of which Damocles saw a naked sword suspended over 
his head by a single horsehair — a sight which quickly dispelled all his 
visions of happiness." 

70 396-9. The only submission which Jupiter is willing to accept 
is the revelation of the destiny which is impending over him like the 
sword of Damocles ; but that revelation would assure the power of 
Jupiter and the slavery of mankind. 

70 403-5. Justice will not punish those who sin against her laws ; 
those who sin inflict a more than sufficient punishment on themselves. 

71 429-431. The same idea is contained in the Prom. Vinct., 11. 
966-9. 

72 442. hollow : this adjective belongs to " they " (1. 440), not to 
" wings." 

73 452-7. The Furies represent the various causes of pain and 
suffering among men. 

74 483-491. The foul and evil ideas which arise in the mind are 
represented as springing from external influences, but are so subtly in- 



NOTES. 323 

fused that the sufferer thinks they originate with himself; cf. the wide- 
spread notion of the suggestions of Satan and his ministers. 

75 498-532. Various forms in which evil and misery exist among 
men are here indicated. 

75 513-516. The dread of Hell makes men cruel. 

77 539-545. The veil of futurity is torn, and Prometheus sees how 
evil comes out of good ; the perception of this is the keenest agony 
which he has to endure. 

77 546. The reference is to the Founder of Christianity. 

77 546-654. Particular instances of good resulting in evil are repre- 
sented : (ist) the developments of Christianity in 11. 546-566, 586-631 ; 
(2d) the French Revolution and its consequences in 11. 567-577, 648-654. 

80 618-631. The degradation of the inner nature is worse than the 
bodily anguish which has been described. In this passage we have a 
picture of the actual world as it appeared in Shelley's eyes. 

81 634. The persistence of good in the heart of Prometheus enables 
him to rise superior to his torments. 

82 657-670. The Spirits sent by the Earth to comfort Prometheus are 
embodiments of the joy which arises from good impulses, actions, etc. : 
the first Spirit tells of heroic action ; the second, of heroic self-sacrifice ; 
the third, of wisdom ; the fourth, of the creative power of the poetic 
imagination ; the fifth and sixth, of the beautiful ideals of love. 

84 712. Between: the commas after *' Between " and "cloud" are 
not in the original editions, but are inserted by Forman and Dowden 
to bring out the meaning of the passage. Forman considers *' Be- 
tween " equivalent to through, and cites, for this sense of the word : 

*' Between one foliaged lattice twinkling fair " {Alastor, 1. 464) and 
The Clottd, 11. 69, 70, for the image. The meaning would then be through 
the rainbow's arch. But Forman also suggests, what seems to be the 
true explanation, that " Between " means between arch and sea. 

85 737-749. Professor Winchester notes how vividly suggestive of 
Shelley's own poetic temper this passage is ; e.g., 11. 746-8, as regards 
material beauty. 

86 765-770. Love in the actual w^orld is followed by disappointment 
and pain ; so, at least, it had been in the poet's experience. 

86 770. The punctuation is that of the original ; if correct, " I 
wandered o'er " must mean / continued my wanderings. Mr. Forman 
believes that the punctuation subverts the sense, and that " I wandered 
o'er " is a relative clause describing '* night." 

86 772-5. Cf. " For Homer says, that the Goddess Calamity is deli- 
cate, and that her feet are tender. ' Her feet are soft,' he says, ' for 



324 NOTES. 

she treads not upon the ground, but makes her paths upon the heads 
of men ' " (Shelley's translation of The Banquet of Plato. Forman's 
edition, Vol. VII, p. 196). 

88 807-833. The thoughts of the hero turn to Asia, and we are pre- 
pared for her appearance in the next act. 

Act II, Scene I. 

89 1-12. The similes in this passage are examples of the imagery 
referred to in the fourth paragraph of Shelley's Preface to the poem 
(see p. 50). 

90 14. thou : Panthea. 

90 26 .ffiolian : the music is produced by the wind, like that of the 
aeolian harp. The adjective is derived from ALolns, the name of the 
god of the wind. 

90 31. that soul : Prometheus. 

90 38-55. In happier seasons, when the spirit attains its ideal, faith 
and hope are not needful ; but now Panthea (faith) is busily employed 
as a messenger between Asia and Prometheus. 

91 62-92. In her first dream, Faith sees by anticipation the triumph 
of good. 

92 93-106. Hope can only vaguely shape the picture of the ideal. 

94 127-141. This second dream of P'aith is a dream of the period of 
transition from present evil to future perfection It is a " rude," " wild," 
and " quick " period of arduous pursuit. 

94 140. The story goes that Apollo inadvertently killed Hyacinthus, 
whom he loved. The latter was changed into a flower on whose leaves 
might be discerned the Greek interjection to express woe, AI. 

95 165. " Mr. Rossetti suspects that aroiuid is a misprint for among 
or amid., — finding some difficulty in regard to a being 'around the 
crags.' My impression is that the word around is Shelley's, and that 
Asia simply means some diffused, elemental being, such as one would 
expect to find in a poem full of symbolic supernaturalism, — some 
spirit, perhaps, similar in character to those described by the Earth in 
11. 658-661, Act I " (Forman's note). 

Act II, Scene II. 

The forest scene seems to symbolize human life, with its material 
beauty (described in Semi-cho7-tis I), its emotional experiences {Senii- 
choriis II), and its intellectual impulses and perceptions {Semi-chorus 
III). 



NOTES. 325 

99 38. Like the music from a flute played on a lake. 

99 50. the destined : the chosen few who seize the truth of things. 
The reading of the line is that of the MS. at Boscombe. In the first 
edition the line was printed, " And wakes the destined soft emotion." 
Mrs. Shelley in her first edition of 1839 inserted a colon after "destined " ; 
in her second edition this is changed to a comma. 

99 62. the fatal mountain " is probably that to which Tanthea and 
Asia are advancing, and where we find them at the beginning of the 
next scene " (Miss Scudder's note). 

101 90. thwart : perverse, ill-tempered. 

Silenus is associated, in ancient story, wdth the fauns and satyrs 
who represent the powers of nature ; Silenus had the gifts of song and 
prophecy. 

Act II, Scene III. 

Asia and Panthea have passed out of the world of ordinary experi- 
ence represented by the forest of the previous scene, and rise to the 
arduous and lofty heights of thought symbolized by the mountainous 
scenery here presented. 

101 9. maenads : the frenzied followers of Bacchus ; one of their 
cries was Evoe. 

101 12-15. This hypothesis is in harmony with the revelations of 
Demogorgon in the next scene, as Asia herself says in 11. 121-2 of 
Scene iv. 

102 40-42. An illustration of the species of imagery spoken of in the 
Preface, p. 50. The simile possibly gives an inkling of the symbolic 
meaning of the whole description. 

103 54. The " Song of Spirits " shows that to attain truth we must get 
beyond the mere phenomena, the visible aspects of things, to the real, 
eternal world of which these are but shadows. Shelley found sugges- 
tions for this mysticism in the works of Plato and Berkeley. 

104 74. Where the air is not a medium through which light passes, 
i.e.. where there is no light. The reference in "prism" is to the use, 
not to the /o7'm of the prism. 

104 93-98. " The power of Demogorgon can be set free only when 
love has attained to utter self-abnegation " (Miss Scudder). In this 
last stanza we pass from the intellectual conditions of the successful 
pursuit of truth, to the moral. 



326 NOTES. 



Act II, Scene IV. 

Demogorgon : this name is employed by various writers to desig- 
nate a powerful and mysterious spirit. Milton {Paradise Lost, II, 
1. 965), speaking of the " throne of Chaos " and of " Night eldest of 
things," places beside it 

Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name 
Of Demogorgon. 

Spenser {Faerie Qtceen, I, 1. 2>l) mentions " Great Gorgon, prince of 
darkness and of night," Greene {Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, XI, 
1. no), " Demogorgon, master of the fates." According to Lactantius, 
an ancient commentator on Statius, Demogorgon is the origin and first 
of all the gods, and is alluded to, though not named, both by Statius and 
by Lucan in, e.g., Pharsalia, VI, 11. 496-9 and 744-8. See for the various 
references Ackermann, Englische Stndien, XVI, pp. 34-37. The ideas 
connected with Demogorgon in earlier literature are, therefore, in har- 
mony with the interpretation of this personage given in the introductory 
note, p. 318-319. 

106 12. which has no verb to complete it ; this is probably due to 
the author's oversight, not to corruption in the text. 

106 12-18. Cf. this statement with the similar one in the Essay on 
Love (Forman's edition. Vol. VII, p. 269). 

106 28 ff. The ultimate source of evil is not traced to God, but to 
some power of which nothing is known save that it is a power. Evil 
comes from Jupiter, it is true ; but Jupiter is in himself powerless, and 
the evil which springs from him may, and will, in time be got rid of. 
But there is more deeply implanted in the universe a mysterious source 
of evil of which man knows nothing, and upon which he can exert no 
influence. Shelley, as others, found the problem of the origin of evil 
insoluble, and thrust it back into a vague and remote mystery. 

107 32 ff. In this passage we have an embodiment in myth of 
Shelley's ideas as to the history of the universe. First, there is dimly 
indicated the existence of absolute, eternal entities. Then, with Saturn, 
"from whose throne time fell," began the world of phenomena, the 
actual world which appears to our senses. Originally mankind was 
like a child, innocent and enjoying its existence, with self-conscious- 
ness and intellectual power scarcely developed. With the growth of 
the latter came wisdom and knowledge; men improved their condi- 
tions by inventing institutions, organizing themselves. Hence there 
arose government and authority, symbolized in this poem as Jupiter. 



AZOTES. 327 

Wisdom enthroned these on condition that men should not be enslaved 
by them, but should preserve the spirit of liberty, of free investigation ; 
institutions must not blind or impede the spirit of man. But the 
natural tendency of authority is to evil (11. 47-48). From the conse- 
quent degradation came the miseries of humanity. Then the spirit of 
man was roused to produce alleviations for his sad condition (1. 59), — 
ideas, feelings, inventions for increasing his bodily comfort, the discov- 
eries of science, and the creations of art. 

107 43-100. In ^schylus, also, Jupiter wins his sovereignty by the 
aid of Prometheus {Prom. Vinct., 11. 219-223) ; and the benefits which, 
according to Asia, are conferred upon humanity by Prometheus are 
similar to those mentioned in the older drama. This whole passage may 
be compared with 11. 435-506 of the Projiictheiis Vinctus. 

108 61. Nepenthe was a magic drug which caused forgetfulness of 
care and sorrow (see Odyssey, IV, 221). 

Moly was the herb given by Hermes to Ulysses to preserve him 
against the spells of Circe (see Odyssey, X, 302-6, and cf. Milton, 
Comiis, I. 636). 

Amaranth : the word means originally unfading, a»d is used by 
Milton to designate one of the flowers inwoven in the crowns of the 
angels of Heaven : 

Immortal amarant, a flower which once 

In Paradise fast by the tree of Life 

Began to bloom, but soon for Man's offence 

To Heaven remov'd, where first it grew, there grows 

And flowers aloft shading the fount of Life. 

Paradise Lost, III, 11. 353-7. 

108 80-84. Mr. Swinburne says {Essays and Studies, '^. 198): "The 
simplest explanation here possible is, I believe, the right. Women 
with child gazing on statues (say on the Venus of Melos) bring forth 
children like them — children whose features reflect the passion of the 
gaze and perfection of the sculptured beauty ; men, seeing, are con- 
sumed with love ; 'perish ' meaning simply '■ deperire'' ; cf. Virgil's well- 
worn version, ' ut vidi, ut peril.' " This interpretation may seem far- 
fetched, but is confirmed by Act IV, 11. 412-414. 

109 91. interlunar : in the absence of the moon ; a favorite word 
with Shelley, who found it in Milton's Samson Agonistes, 1. 89 

Silent as the moon 
Hid in her vacant interlunar cave. 



328 NOTES. 

109 100. rains : this is the reading of Mrs. Shelley's editions, and is 
adopted by Rossetti, Dowden, and Woodberry. The editions published 
in Shelley's lifetime read reigns, which is retained by Forman, who says : 
*' The statement made is that Jove does not reign down evil. If it 
we:e that he did not rain down evil, it would be contradictory of the 
whole conception of Jove in this poem." But the point in the passage 
before us is that Jove is not the ultimate source of evil; he, too, is enslaved. 

109 112 ff. Understanding from Demogorgon's last reply that the 
power of Jupiter is not ultimate, Asia naturally reverts to " God," of 
whom Demogorgon had already spoken, and asks for a further descrip- 
tion of God, so that she may know whether God is the ultimate cause. 

In the following passage Shelley's meaning seems to be that, in the 
ordinary sense of the word " God," Jupiter is God ; he is supreme in 
the world of phenomena. But behind these phenomena lies absolute 
existence — the permanent laws and conditions of the universe to which 
all things are subject. Shelley finds language inadequate to express 
this mystery ; these absolute forces are woX. personal ; he merely adum- 
brates them by words like " Fate," " Time," etc. (1. 119). This notion 
of a dim, inexplicable force behind everything else was held also by the 
Greeks in their conception of a Fate to which the gods themselves are 
subject. We find this idea expressed in the Prom. Vinct., 11. 515-518: 

Xo. Tts Qt)v dm7/c7;s iarlv olaKoarpocpos ; 

Up. MoTpaL rpiixQp(f)OL ixvqixoves r 'Eptwes. 

Xo. Tovrwv dpa Zevs iariv dadev^arepos ; 

Up. ovKovu av €K(pTjyot ye ttjv TreTrpcofxivrjv, 
which is thus translated by Plumptre: 

Chorus. Who guides the helm, then, of necessity ? 
Prom. Fates triple-formed, Erinnyes unforgetting. 
Chorus. Is Zeus, then, weaker in his might than these ? 
Prom. Not even he can 'scape the thing decreed. 

Shelley makes an exception to this all-pervading power : Eternal 
Love is not subject to it. By this he seems to indicate that there is a 
spirit present in the universe, — a spirit in which men share, — which 
rises superior to all conditions and forces; just as many thinkers except 
from the dominion of necessity the wnll of rational creatures. Shelley, 
in short, conceives the universe here, as in the Adonais, to be dualistic: 
on the one hand, there is a sort of body, inert, and sometimes positively 
evil ; and on the other, a spirit of Beauty and Love working in and 
through it, hampered by the body, yet rising superior to it. 

110 121-2. Cf. Act II, iii, 12-16. 



NOTES. 329 

110 122-3. The poet means that no one can adequately express for 
another the ideas at which he has been hinting. Each one must inter- 
pret them in detail for himself. 

111 142. This "spirit" is the spirit of the hour of Jupiter's doom. 
Ill 156. This second spirit is that of the hour of Prometheus's 

release. 

Act II, Scene V. 

113 20-31. This passage, with its reference to the birth of Aphrodite 
(Venus) from the sea, serves to identify Asia in some measure with 
Venus, and, of course, with the Uranian Venus. 

114 48. The " Voice " (in the stage direction) is doubtless the voice 
of Prometheus, who is also addressed in the song of Asia which 

follows. 

114 52. looks. "It has been suggested to read locks mstead ot 
looks, but Mr. Garnett {Relics of Shelley, p. 98) settled the point by 
recording that ' in an Italian prose translation made by Shelley himself 
the disputed word is rendered sguardi''' (Forman's note). 

Mr Forman illustrates the meaning of these lines by the following 
quotation from a letter of Shelley to Peacock (April 6, 1819), where he 
says of Roman beauties: "The only inferior part are the eyes, which, 
though good and gentle, want the mazy depth of colour behind colour, 
with which the intellectual women of England and Germany entangle 
the heart in soul-inwoven labyrinths." 

115 62. it: the liquid splendour in which thou art clothed. The 
" for " introduces the reason that " none beholds thee." 

115 65. "The strange words 'lost for ever' express that passionate 
self-abandonment which possesses those that yearn after the unattain- 
able ideal" (Todhunter, A Study of Shelley, p. 167). 

115 72 ff. This song affords a wonderful example of the use of 
imagery, not as a symbol to be intellectually interpreted, but like notes 
of music, to suggest and stimulate a certain train of feeling, — the 
ineffable sense of the perfect satisfaction of every desire. 

116 96. and is not in the original editions ; it is a conjecture of Mr. 
Rossetti; adopted by Forman and Dowden. 

116 98-103. The periods of life are mentioned in reverse order, as if 
the spirit were moving backward to the infinite world from which it 
originally came. 

116 108-110. The structure and rhythm of the last two lines are 
extraordinarily awkward ; " rest " is in the same construction as " see " ; 
" somewhat like thee " belongs to " shape 



oes. 



33 O NOTES. 



Act III, Scene I. 

117 13. night is the reading of Mrs. Shelley's edition, adopted by 
Rossetti, Dowden, and Woodberry ; tnig/ii is the reading of the edition 
published in Shelley's lifetime, and is retained by Forman. 

117 2.5. Idaean Ganymede: Ganymede was the cup-bearer of 
Jupiter. He was of Trojan descent, and was carried off from Mount 
Ida in the neighborhood of Troy. 

117 26. Daedal: skilfully wrought. A favorite word with Shelley; 
cf. Act IV, 11. Ii6, 416; Ode to Liberty, 1. 18 ; Hymn of Pan, 1. 26, etc. 

lis 40. The allusion is to a passage in Lucan's PJiarsalia, IX, 
11. 763-7S8, which describes the death of a soldier by the bite of a seps, 
a species of poisonous serpent. 

119 72-73. For a full description of such a conflict, see The Revolt 
of Islam., Canto I, vi-xiv. 

Act III, Scene II. 

120 11. "This speech is printed precisely as in Shelley's edition; 
but it is open to some doubt whether a line is not lost. We may, how- 
ever, be meant to understand simply, ' an eagle sinks so when caught 
in some bursting cloud ' " (Forman's note). 

121 24. Proteus : a personage of ancient myth, the old man of 
the sea, who possessed prophetic gifts and the power of transforming 
himself into various shapes; see Virgil's Georgics, IV, 387-414. 

Act III, Scene III. 

122 10 ff. There is a similar description of a paradise in Epipsy- 
chidion, 11. 422 ff. 

122 1.5-17. A description of stalactites. 

123 42. Enna: a city in the centre of Sicily ; cf. Paradise Lost, IV, 
11. 268-271 : 

Not that fair field 
Of Enna, where Proserpine gathering flowers, 
Herself a fairer flower by gloomy Dis 
Was gathered. 

123 43. Himera was the name of a river in the neighborhood of 
Enna; in this passage the name appears to be transferred to the 
country. 



NOTES. 331 

123 49-53. The lovely creations of art shall visit us, less splendid at 
first, but afterwards radiant, when the mind of the artist, from familiarity 
with actual beauty, shall be able to give to the phantoms of the imagi- 
nation the excellences which exist in reality. 

124 64-68. Proteus (see note on III, ii, 24, above) had prophetic 
powers, and may, therefore, be appropriately represented as the giver 
of the trumpet which announces the inauguration of a new era. 

125 85-104. The poet represents material nature as changing through 
some mysterious sympathy with the moral renovation of man. 

125 105-114. The poet considers that men will still be subject to 
death and mutability (see 1. 25 above, and 11. 200-1 of sc. iv). 

126 110-114. 'Only those who have experienced death can under- 
stand what it is.' To Shelley death remained an inexplicable mystery. 
The most satisfactory view of it to him is that expressed in 11. 113- 
114: What we call life is that which hides real existence from us ; we 
shall enter fully into life after we have died ; hence what we call life'xs, 
truly considered, death. Cf. the Sonnet on p. 44, and Adonais, stanzas 
xxxix, xli, and Hi. 

126 123. It is a question whether this is the same cavern as that 
described by Prometheus (1. 10 above), or a different one. The two 
descriptions may be due to inadvertence on the part of the poet. 

127 154. Nysa : the legendary scene of the nurture of Bacchus, 
whose frenzied female followers were called Maenads. 

127 161. Apparently a second temple beside the cave. 

127 165. Praxitelean shapes : shapes possessing the perfection of 
the statues of Praxiteles, one of the greatest of Greek sculptors, who 
flourished about 464 B.C. 

Act III, Scene IV. 

Spirit of the Earth (stage direction) : Mr. Rossetti says in his 
article on Prometheus Unbonnd {Shelley Soeiety Papej's) : •' My own 
opinion is that the Winged-child Spirit [introduced at the close of the 
last scene] and the Spirit of the Earth are probably not the same per- 
sonage. ... If the spirits are indeed two, as I think, they have a 
strange unity in duality ; if they are one, they are an unaccountable 
duality in unity ; for their recorded performances in the two scenes 
appear to be positively at odds mte?' se." To the present editor it 
seems probable that the poet intended one and the same character in 
the two scenes. In the Spirit of the Earth the poet represents the 
natural tendencies of the Earth as a whole (as in common talk we 



332 NOTES. 

speak of the spirit of an age, of a nation, etc.). These natural tenden- 
cies are innocent and good, and had free scope in the early Golden 
Age (see 11. 15-16), but were still undeveloped when the reign of evil 
came to check them. Hence, the Spirit was and still remains a child, 
but has begun to grow again, and will, by and by, reach man's estate. 
This natural good tendency of earthly things is a portion of the univer- 
sal spirit of beauty and love ; hence, its embodiment (the child) is 
closely connected with Asia and calls her " mother." 

129 19. dipsas : a serpent mentioned in Lucan's Pharsalia, IX, 
1. 610, whose bite caused intense thirst. 

129 24. The action of the Spirit here, as well as the previous con- 
versation of Panthea and lone, would lead us to suppose that it now 
meets them for the first time instead of having accompanied them 
" beyond the peak of Bacchic Nysa," etc. (sc. iii, 1. 148 ff.), as the identi- 
fication with the " Winged-child " of the previous scene implies. 

130 54. The sounding of the shell is referred to (see Act III, iii, 
64-83). 

131 94. interlunar air: the air from which the moon is absent; 
cf. note on Act II, iv, 91, 

132 106. The punctuation of the text is that of the original. The 
sense would be better indicated by putting, as Professor Woodberry 
does, a semicolon at the end of the line : ' As I dizzy with delight 
floated down, my coursers,' etc. 

132 no. Pasturing flowers evidently means 'pasturing on flowers.' 
Mr. Forman conjectures that on is omitted through inadvertence. 

132 112. Phidian: cf. " Praxitelean" in III, iii, 165, above. Phidias 
was the greatest of Greek sculptors ; died 432 B.C. 

132 119. amphisbenic snake : a snake with a head at each end. 
Antique chariot spokes were sometimes made in this form, but Mr. 
Forman is " inclined to think Shelley's own fancy adapted to this use 
the prodigy found with the seps and the dipsas in Bk. IX of Lucan's 
Pharsalia.'''' 

132 136. This is a translation of the inscription on the gate of Hell, 
according to Dante's Inferno, III, 9. 

132 149-152. The ordinary hollow talk of society, where one assents 
from mere complacency to things which the heart denies ; yet in this 
assent there is no definite hypocritical purpose, although such behavior 
leads to mistrust of our own sincerity. 

134 164-179. This sentence is long-drawn and obscure, but the mean- 
ing becomes apparent on examination. The following interpretation is 
by Professor Woodberry: "The emblems of Power and Faith stand in 



NOTES. 333 

the new world unregarded and mouldering memorials of a dead past, 
just as the Egyptian monuments imaged to a later time than their own 
a vanished monarchy and religion ; the fact that these monuments sur- 
vive the new race and last into our still later time is an unnecessary 
and subordinate incident, inserted because it appealed to Shelley's 
imagination." 

134 179. The punctuation is that of the original. Mr. Rossetti puts 
a comma after " conquerors " and a period after " round," and, conse- 
quently, connects " mouldering " with " palaces and tombs." 

134 173. those refers to " monstrous and barbaric shapes." 

imaged is the past tense (as Forman, Rossetti, and Woodberry in- 
terpret), not the past participle, as Mr. Swinburne supposes {Essays and 
Studies, p. 20o). 

134 190-2. Compare the opening lines of the Sonnet, on p. 44, and 
Adonais, 11. 462-5. 

134 193-8. The colon after "man" (1. 194) and the period after 
"man" (1. 197) are inserted from Mr. Rossetti's emendations of the 
punctuation of the original editions, where there are no stops what- 
ever after these words. These changes seem to be required by the 
sense, and are rendered more plausible by the fact that at the ends 
of lines stops are apt to fall out. Mr. Rossetti makes other changes 
in the punctuation of the passage which make the connection more 
obvious, but are not absolutely necessary. He prints : 

The man remains, — 
Sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed ; but man : 
Equal, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless, 
Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king 
Over himself ; just, gentle, wise : but man. 
Passionless ? no ; yet free from guilt or pain, — 

With no stops at the end of 11. 194 and 197, as the original editions 
read, the "but" in these two lines seems out of place. Mr. Forman 
and Professor Woodberry retain the punctuation of the original 
editions, and the former argues in behalf of it: 'He [Mr. Rossetti] 
objects to this Inct on the ground that there is no antithesis, but the 
contrary, between the epithets which precede and follow it. If the but 
were what Mr. Rossetti takes it to be, this statement is obviously true; 
but this must not be too hastily admitted. I leave the passage as I 
find it, because I see no great difficulty and suspect no corniption what- 
ever, though the forms of expression are certainly eccentric. The but 
in dispute I take to be used in the common sense of only, merely. . . . 



334 NOTES. 

The insertion of a full stop at man in 1. 197 seems to me to destroy the 
one great antithesis that the poet meant to express : I cannot think he 
meant, as Mr. Rossetti says, that man, though equal, the king over him- 
self, etc., is still man. The antithesis which he seems to me to have 
meant to emphasize is man equal and thoroughly emancipated from 
artificial laws and restraints, but not man passionless, — man exempt 
from guilt and pain ; but not from death and mutability." 

134 194 ff. Note Shelley's dislike of all authority as brought out in the 
picture of perfected humanity ; there is absolutely no social organization. 

135 200-1. It is noteworthy that Shelley's conception of the highest 
perfection of which the universe is capable admits the existence of 
defects ; these, however, and even death itself, lose their terrors for man- 
kind through the force of the individual will, through assuming the 
proper attitude of mind with regard to them. 

Act IV. 

Act IV was an afterthought. Mrs. Shelley says : " At first he com- 
pleted the drama in three acts. It was not till several months after, 
when at Florence, that he conceived that a fourth act, a sort of hymn 
of rejoicing in the fulfilment of the prophecies with regard to Prome- 
theus, ought to be added to complete the composition." Panthea and 
lone (Faith and Hope) are present throughout the act and serve to 
describe the scene and interpret the other characters. 

135 1-39. The past is buried. 

137 40-80. A new spirit rules all things. 

139 93-128. The Spirits of the Human Mind tell of the pursuits of 
regenerated humanity. 

140 116. Daedal : here, as usual, the word may be interpreted 'skil- 
fully wrought ' (see note on Act III, i, 26) ; but the word may perhaps 
be used with special reference to the wings which Daedalus invented 
and with which he soared heavenward. 

142 180. The dialogue serves to divide the first and second lyrical 
interludes. 

143 184. unpavilioned sky : the sky from the pavilion of clouds 
has vanished ; cf. The Cloud, 1. 78. 

143 202. Two visions : the chariot of the Earth and the chariot 
of the Moon. 

144 206-235. Description of the Moon and her chariot. 

144 213. Regard : look like ; an odd use of the word as an in- 
transitive verb. 



NOTES. 335 

144 221. Mr. Rossetti proposes to improve the versification by 
interchanging " feathers " and " plumes " ; but the rhythm of the verse 
as it stands seems Shelleyan. 

145 236-318. Description of the Earth and his chariot. 

145 242. and before " green " is not in the original editions, but is 
inserted by Rossetti, followed by Forman. 

146 272. tyrant-quelling myrtle : the epithet is doubtless sug- 
gested by the story of the Athenian heroes, Harmodius and Aristo- 
geiton, who hid their swords in myrtle wreaths when they made their 
attack on the tyrant of their city, 514 B.C. 

146 281. Valueless : invaluable ; cf. unvalued with the same mean- 
ing, Arethiisa, 1. 60. 

147 302. If *' over " means outside of, the strata are in the reverse 
order to the natural one. 

147 325. Brother mine : the Earth who is the speaker in this dia- 
logue is evidently not the same character as the Earth who appears in 
the first act. That " Earth " is feminine, the mother of the Titans, 
and corresponds to the Greek Gaia. The description of the figure of 
the Earth in the chariot (11. 261-8 above) would correspond with the 
Spirit of the Earth in Act III, sc. iv, but the language of the speeches 
suits better the Earth of Act I. Mr. James Thomson (as quoted by 
Miss Scudder) asserts that the speaker in Act IV corresponds to 
neither of the earlier personifications, but is " our own natural Earth, 
the living enduring root of these and of all other conceptions, mytho- 
logic, imaginative, rational ; the animate World-sphere instinct with 
spirit, personified as masculine in relation to the feminine Moon." On 
the other hand, Mr. Forman has no " moral doubt that we should read 
The Spirit of the Earth and The Spirit of the Moon, for The Earth and 
The Moon^^ from this point onward ; because, *' in the first place, The 
Spirit of the Earth and The Spirit of the Moon are introduced explicitly 
in the long speeches of lone and Panthea, 11. 194-318, immediately 
preceding the choric dialogue in question. Secondly, this Spirit that 
guides the Earth is told by Asia, in Act III, sc. iv, that they will never 
part till his ' chaste sister who guides the frozen and inconstant moon ' 
shall love him ; and when he asks — ' What; as Asia loves Prometheus ? ' 
— the reply is, ' Peace, wanton, thou art yet not old enough ' : from 
which, I imagine, we are to assume that in the interval he has grown 
old enough, and the prophecy of love from The Spirit of the Moon is 
under fulfilment. Thirdly, Mrs. Shelley, in her first edition of 1839, 
inserted a new dramatis persona. The Spirit of the Moon, presumably 
from Shelley's list of errata; and there are no speeches but these of 
The Moon to assign to such a person." 



336 NOTES. 

149 370. It : love. 

150 394-9. Man, oh, not men ! Man considered as making a unity, 
not regarded as composed of individuals with conflicting interests; as 
a whole united by love, as the solar system is held in unity and order 
by the sun. The passage is interesting both as exhibiting Shelley's 
tendency to abstractions and his yearning for simplicity and unity, and 
also as a sort of anticipation of the socialistic ideal. 

150 408. A spirit which it is difficult to guide, but which is strong in 
exacting obedience. 

151 412-413. Man embodies his dreams in statuary and painting. 
151 414. The idea here is the same as that explained in the note on 

11. 83-84 of Act. II, sc. iv. 

151 415. Orphic: perhaps here means no more than 'poetic' 
Orpheus was the father of Greek poetry; but the adjective Orphic 
usually suggests poetry of a sacred or mystic character. 

151 416. Daedal: see note on Act III, i, 26. 

151 418. The preceding stanza speaks of man's artistic activity ; 
here reference is made to his skill in science. 

151 432. unfrozen : this is the reading of Mrs. Shelley's editions 
(followed by Forman, Dowden, and Woodberry). Mr. Rossetti reads 
infrozen, following the editions published in Shelley's lifetime. 

153 473. Maenad : see note on Act II, iii, 9. 

153 474-5. Agave was the daughter of Cadmus, the mythical 
founder of Thebes. Shelley has in mind here those scenes of the 
BacchcB of Euripides, where Agave is the leader of the Theban women 
in their Bacchic orgies. 

156 534-8. Whether the dead become a portion of the all-pervading 
spirit of the universe (see Adonais, stanzas xlii, xliii), or utterly pass 
away. 

156 551. Cf. Wordsworth's " She was a phantom of delight," 1. 24 : 

A Traveller between life and death, 

157 554-5. The day on which Heaven's despotism is to be swal- 
lowed up by the abyss, through the influence of Prometheus. Prome- 
theus is called " earth-born " as being a Titan ; the Titans were sons 
of Heaven and Earth. 

157 562-578. Demogorgon sums up the moral of the drama. The 
virtues mentioned in 1. 562 are the assurance that the happy era will be 
maintained ; and should evil (here represented as a serpent) once more 
gain the upper hand, these virtues afford the means of subduing it. 



NOTES. 337 

The final stanza expresses what, in Shelley's opinion, is the proper 
attitude, even in our own times, of those who desire the renovation of 
mankind. 



SONNET: ENGLAND IN 1819. 

9. There is a semicolon at the end of this line, in Mrs. Shelley's 
edition of 1839 (when this sonnet was first published), and a comma in 
her second edition. Both Mr. Forman and Professor Dowden read 
without any stop at the end of the line. 



ODE TO THE WEST WIND. 

Mr. Stopford Brooke says of this ode : " The emotion awakened by 
the approaching storm sets on fire other sleeping emotions in his heart, 
and the whole of his being bursts into flame around the first emotion. 
This is the manner of the genesis of all the noblest lyrics. He passes 
from magnificent union of himself with Nature and magnificent realiza- 
tion of her storm and peace, to equally great self-description, and then 
mingles all nature and himself together, that he may sing of the restora- 
tion of mankind. There is no song in the whole of our literature more 
passionate, more penetrative, m.ore full of the force by which the idea 
and its form are united in one creation " (Preface to Poems of Shelley., 
p. xvii). 

The terza rima (aba, bcb, cdc, etc.), employed in this poem, is but 
little used in English poetry. The suitability here of the stanza form 
to the theme should be noted. The series of sustained waves of feel- 
ing, each closing in an invocation, corresponds to the suspended rhyme 
of each triplet, resolved at the close of each fourth stanza by the coup- 
let, with its sense of completeness. 



THE INDIAN SERENADE. 

There are several versions of this poem, all seemingly originating 
with Shelley himself. It appeared in print in The Liberal, 1822, under 
the title Song, written for an Indian Air ; Mrs. Shelley published it 



S3^ NOTES, 

among the Posthumous Poems as Lines to an Indian Air. In 1819 
Shelley gave a MS. copy of the poem to Miss Sophia Stacey, and this 
MS. still exists ; another MS., found on Shelley's person after his 
death, is described by Browning in a letter to Leigh Hmit ; still another 
MS. is in the Harvard collection. 

163 4. shining : " burning " in The Liberal and the Harvard MS. 

163 11. So the line reads in The Liberal, the Harvard MS., and the 
Posthit7)ious Poems; but "And the Champak's odours fail" in the 
reading of the Browning MS., followed by Forman ; Uowden reads, 
" And the champak." 

Champak : " this plant is mentioned as chufupak in Sketches of 
Hindoostan (p. 96), where Medwin explains that it is jasmine " (For- 
man's note). 

163 15. So the line reads in The Liberal and Posthuinous Poems, as 
also, apparently, in the Browning MS. The Harvard MS. and Mrs. 
Shelley's later edition read, " As I must die on thine"; this version is 
adopted by Woodberry. 

163 16. So the line reads in the Browning MS., Harvard MS., and 
Mrs. Shelley's later edition ; but The Liberal and the Posthumous 
Poems omit the " O." 

163 23. This is the reading of the Browning MS., followed by 
Forman and Dowden ; " press me to thine own " is found in The 
Liberal; "press it close to thine again " in the Harvard MS. and in 
Mrs. Shelley's editions. 



SOPHIA. 



These stanzas were addressed to Miss Sophia Stacey. " This lady," 
says Mr. Rossetti " was a ward of Mr. Parker, an uncle by marriage of 
Shelley, living in Bath. She saw a good deal of the poet and his wife 
in Italy from time to time, having lived three months in the same 
house with them in Florence. . . . She eventually married Captain 
J. P. Catty, R.E." 

In the original MS. there are several cancelled readings. It is inter- 
esting to note the changes which the poet made: in 1. 10 "tender" 
was originally ^^'«//f ; in 1. 11 "Zephyrs" was the lightnings ; in 1. 12 
" gentle " was softest ; in 1. 14 " those " was thine ; in 1. 15 " soul " was 
heart. 



NOTES. 339 



LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY. 

First published in The Indicator, December, 1819. In the following 
December Shelley gave a MS. copy of this poem to Miss Stacey. The 
text follows this MS., which still exists. "Mr. J. H. Dixon pointed 
out in Notes and Queries (in January, 1868) that the poem is traceable 
to a French song in eight lines, — ' Les vents baisent les nuages ' " 
(Forman's note). The French song is not quoted in Notes and Queries 
(Jan. 25th), but Mr. Dixon states that Shelley's poem is an imitation, 
not a translation. 

165 7. The Indicator and the Harvard MS. read, " In one an- 
other's being." 

165 11. Sister: 77^.? /w^/Va/^r reads, "leaf or." 

165 15. In The Itidicator this line stood, " What are all these kiss- 
ings worth." 



ODE TO HEAVEN. 

Mrs. Shelley says in her Preface to Essays, Letters, etc. : " Shelley 
was a disciple of the Immaterial Philosophy of Berkeley. This theory 
gave unity and grandeur to his ideas, while it opened a wide field for 
his imagination. The creation, such as it was perceived by his mind — 
a unit in immensity — was slight and narrow compared with the inter- 
minable forms of thought that might exist beyond, to be perceived per- 
haps hereafter by his own mind ; all of which are perceptible to other 
minds that fill the universe, not of space in the material sense, but of 
infinity in the immaterial one. Such ideas are, in some degree, devel- 
oped in his poem entitled Heaven ; and when he makes one of the 
interlocutors exclaim, 

Peace ! the abyss is wreathed in scorn 
Of thy presumption, atom-born, 

he expresses his despair of being able to conceive, far less express, all of 
variety, majesty, and beauty, which is veiled from our imperfect senses 
in the unknown realm, the mystery of which his poetic vision sought in 
vain to penetrate." 

166 21-22. The power wherein man sees a reflection of his own 
nature; man's conception of God is based upon his knowledge of him- 
self. 

166 32. But the portal, etc. : this is in the same construction as 
"but the mind's first chamber," in 1. 28. 



340 . AZOTES. 



THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 

This is primarily a descriptive poem. The poet, with evident delight 
and exquisite power, produces his picture of the garden and its mistress, 
and enters into and sympathizes with the imagined life of the flowers. 
Secondarily, this concrete picture is symbolic of other things. The 
Sensitive Plant, with its isolation, its intensity, its yearnings, is Shelley 
himself. The lady of the garden is the mystical Spirit of Beauty 
"whose smile kindles the universe." The change which comes over 
the garden and the Sensitive Plant at the approach of winter typifies 
the evil and ugly side of things, — death and the other ills which quench 
the joy of life. The Conclusion (as the close of Adonais) suggests that 
this change is transitory or unreal, that the Spirit of Beauty abides, 
and that the soul of man does not altogether pass away at death, but 
is united to the one spirit which is eternal. 

The workmanship of the poem is very characteristic of Shelley. The 
freedom with which the laws of rhythm and rhyme are treated lends 
a wonderful charm. It will be noted that the music of the verse is 
subtly varied by varying the number of anapaestic substitutions for the 
regular iambs in different lines. 



Part I. 

168 17. wind-flowers : i.e., anemones (derived from dvefxos, wind). 

168 34. Maenad : a female follower of Dionysus inspired with Bac- 
chic frenzy, bearing the thyrszis, a wand tipped with a pine cone. 

170 72-73. The following is Mr. Swinburne's explanation of this 
obscure passage {Essays and Shidies,^\). 185-6): "The plant, which 
could not prove by produce of any blossom the love it felt, received 
more of the light and odour mutually shed upon each other by its 
neighbour flowers than did any one among these, and thus, though 
powerless to show it, yet . . . felt more love than the flower which gave 
it gifts of light and odour could feel, having nothing to give back, as 
the others had, in return ; all the more thankful and loving for the very 
barrenness and impotence of requital which made the gift a charity 
instead of an exchange." To the present writer it seems rather that 
"the giver" is the Sensitive Plant itself. The other flowers had as 
much love as they required (" Where none wanted but it ") ; but the 
Sensitive Plant felt more love for others than could ever be felt 
for it. 



NOTES. 341 



Part III. 



173 1-4. The flowers were dimmed and overcast with gloom, as the 
stars when the moon shines out, or as the waves of the Bay of Naples 
when the moon is darkened by the smoke of Vesuvius. 

173 3. Baiae : a Roman watering-place on the Bay of Naples. 

175 50-57. Mr. Rossetti changed the punctuation so as to connect 
" thistles . . . henbane " with " began to grow," and " hemlock " with 
"stretched." But Shelley was careless in matters of detail, and doubt- 
less, as Mr. Forman says, his meaning was that all the plants men- 
tioned (" thistles . . . hemlock ") "■ stifled the air," while the hemlock, in 
addition to stifling the air, " stretched out," etc. 

176 66-69. This stanza, which is found in the edition published by 
Shelley himself, was omitted by Mrs. Shelley, perhaps on the authority 
of a correction by the poet. Here and elsewhere we find in Shelley a 
morbid tendency towards the horrible. 

176 82. forbid : actursed ; as in Macbeth, I, iii, 21. 

177 91. Seemingly another reminiscence of Macbeth, I, iii, 44-45 : 

By each at once her choppy finger laying 
Upon her skinny lips. 

177 113. griff: grip; a word not found elsewhere, apparently of 
Shelley's own invention. 



THE CLOUD. 

This poem consists of a series of imaginative statements of simple 
facts in regard to clouds. Shelley describes the Cloud as if it had a 
personal existence of its own. In modern poetry, as a rule, natural 
objects are described in connection with human life, either as influenc- 
ing it or for the sake of embodying or reflecting the feelings of the 
poet. It is, however, characteristic of Shelley's genius that he has the 
power and the tendency to enter into the imaginary life of natural 
objects, instead of making them enter into man's life. Of this power, 
'* The Cloud is the most perfect example," says Mr. Stopford IJrooke. 
" It describes the life of the Cloud as it might have been a million of 
years before man came on earth. The ' sanguine Sunrise ' and the 
' orbed Maiden,' the moon, who are the playmates of the Cloud, are 
pure elemental beings " (Preface to Poems of Shelley, p. xl). 



342 NOTES. 

179 15. 'tis: ?>., the snow is ; the Cloud clings about the moun- 
tain, whose top is covered with snow. 

179 21-30. What natural phenomenon is described in the poetical 
language of these lines is by no means clear. Since the pilot is the 
lightning, Shelley may, perhaps, have thought that the motion of 
clouds is influenced by electric forces existing in the earth, and may 
represent these forces here as "genii." The pilot moves the cloud over 
that part of the earth where he dreams the spirit (the electric force) 
remains. Through the influence of this force the pilot makes the rain 
fall from the under surface of the cloud, while the upper surface is bask- 
ing in the blue light of heaven. 

180 5.3-54. The apparent motion of the stars whilst broken clouds 
pass rapidly over them is here represented as a real motion. 

180 58. these : the stars. 

181 81. cenotaph : an empty tomb ; in this case the blue dome of 
heaven. 



TO A SKYLARK. 

182 7-8. It has been proposed to change the punctuation in the text 
(which is that of Shelley's edition) by transferring the semicolon from 
the end of 1. 8 to the end of 1. 7. Professor Baynes says in regard 
to this suggestion : " This is, however, a complete mistake, the critic 
having failed to notice that in the opening verse of the poem the lark, 
when first addressed by the poet, is already far up in the sky ; and that 
in the second verse she continues to ascend further and further from 
the earth, higher and higher into the air. The image ' like a cloud of 
fire ' applies not to the appearance of the bird at all . . . but to the con- 
tinuous motion upward, for the obvious reason that * fire ascending 
seeks the sun' " {Edinburgh Review, April, 187 1). 

182 15. unbodied is the reading in Shelley's and Mrs Shelley's 
editions. In the article just cited, Professor Baynes says : " In quoting 
the poem Professor Craik changed unbodied mto embodied, adding that 
the latter was ' undoubtedly the true word, though always perverted 
into unbodied, — as if joy were a thing that naturally wore a body.'. . . 
The fatal objection to the proposed change is, that it is completely at 
variance with the whole feeling, as well as with the entire conception of 
the poem ; that it reverses the very epithet by which in this particular 
stanza that conception is most vividly expressed. At the outset 
Shelley addresses the Skylark as a spirit singing in the pure empyrean, 



NOTES. 343 

and ever soaring nearer to heaven's gate as she sings. He then apos- 
trophizes the emancipated soul of melody on the celestial lightness and 
freedom in which it now expatiates. To the swift, sympathetic imagi- 
nation of the poet, the scorner of the ground, floating far up in the 
golden light, had become an aerial rapture, a disembodied joy, a 
' delighted spirit,' whose ethereal race had just begun," 

182 21. arrows : the rays of light from the "star of heaven." 
184 80. knew for knew^st ; so drew for drew'st in Epipsychidion, 
1. 369. 



ODE TO LIBERTY. 

The occasion of this poem was an uprising in Spain, of which Mary 
Shelley writes in a letter to a friend, dated March 26, 1820 : " I suppose 
that you have heard the news — that the beloved Ferdinand has pro- 
claimed the Constitution of 181 2, and called the Cortes. The Inquisi- 
tion is established, the dungeons opened, and the patriots pouring out. 
This is good. I should like to be in Madrid now." 

The body of the poem consists of a review of the development of 
liberty (cf. Collins's Ode to Liberty), concluding with an exhortation to 
the nations. 

The motto is from Byron's Childe Harold, IV, stanza xcviii. 

185 St. i. Inspired by the uprisal in Spain, the poet's soul is rapt 
beyond the bounds of space and time, and hears a voice, represented as 
uttering stanzas ii-xviii. 

185 1-2. Mr. Alfred Forman suggests a colon after " again," and a 
comma after " nations " ; this change makes the meaning clearer, but 
the punctuation in the text is that of the original edition and of the 
Harvard MS. A similar use of vibrate as a transitive verb is found in 
a letter of Shelley to Hogg, recently printed by Mr. T. J. Wise : " I 
feel I touch the string which, if vibrated, excites acute pain." 

185 9. Hovering in verse : Mr. Rossetti reads inverse, but the poet 
is thinking of the " soul," not of the " eagle " ; cf. *' in the rapid plumes 
of song," 1. 6. 

186 ii-iii. In the beginning liberty was not. 

186 18. Dsedal : marvellously contrived ; see on Prometheus, Act 
III, i. 26. 

186 41. sister-pest : viz., religion. 

187 iv. The germs of better things lay undeveloped in Greece. 



344 NOTES. 

187 47. dividuous: dividing. 

187 V. At length Athens brought forth Liberty, which in turn begot 
Art. 

187 70-71. on the will of man ... set: a state based upon the 
wishes of its citizens. 

187 74. that hill : the Acropolis of Athens. 

188 vi. The influence of Athens survives, and inspires the world 
with the spirit of liberty. 

188 78-79. A reminiscence, doubtless unconscious, of the opening 
verses of Wordsworth's Stanzas on a Picture of Peek Castle : 

I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile ! 

Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee : 
I saw thee every day ; and all the while 

Thy Form was sleeping on a glassy sea. 

So pure the sky, so quiet was the air ! 

So like, so very like, was day to day ! 
Whene'er I looked, thy Image still was there ; 

It trembled, but it never passed away. 

188 vii. Rome became the seat of Freedom, until cruelty and love of 
gold drove her away. 

188 92-93. The reference is to the Bacchcc of Euripides, 11. 699-700, 
w^here the Cadmaean Maenads (the Theban followers of Bacchus) are 
described as nursing young wolves. 

188 93-94. though thy dearest, etc. : Athens still cherished freedom. 

188 98. Camillus : one of the heroes of repubhcan Rome ; his 
greatest achievement was the defeat (390 B.C.) of the Gauls under 
Brennus. 

Atilius : better known as Regiilus ; he fought against Carthage, was 
made captive, and dissuaded the Senate (250 B.C.) from making a peace 
that would have saved his own life. 

188 103-4. Palatinus sighed, etc. : Palatinus was one of the seven 
hills of Rome, and the original site of the city ; subsequently it was the 
residence of Augustus and the succeeding emperors. The reference 
here is to the imitation of Greek poetry by Roman writers of the 
Empire, perhaps particularly to the imitation of the Ionian Homer in 
the ^neid, whose author, Virgil, enjoyed the patronage of Augustus. 

189 viii. After the rise of the Empire at Rome the Spirit of Liberty 
vanished to some remote and unknown region. 

189 106. Hyrcanian : Hyrcania was a Persian province on the 
shores of the Caspian. 



NOTES. 345 

189 114-115. Thou wert to be found neither among the Teutons nor 
among the Celts, the two great northern races of Europe. 
189 119. The Galilean serpent : Christianity. 

189 ix-x. In the time of Alfred the Spirit of Liberty reappeared, 
developed in the republican cities of Italy, which, under her influence, 
became the home of Art ; next, this same spirit is apparent in the work 
of Luther and of some Englishmen, — Milton, for example. 

190 xi-xii. There followed a general revival of freedom, which, 
however, again suffered eclipse from the excesses of the French Revo- 
lution. 

191 175. The Anarch : Napoleon. 

191 xiii. Spain calls upon England to free herself, — a task much 
easier than that which Spain herself had undertaken. 

191 185. -ffiiolian isle : the name ALolian was applied to a group of 
islands to the northeast of Sicily. 

191 186. Pithecusa : island at the entrance of the Bay of Naples. 

Pelorus : a promontory northeast of Sicily. 

191 189. Her: England's. 

191 192-5. These obscure lines are variously interpreted. Mr. 
Swinburne {Essays and Studies., p. 189) says: "The poet bids the two 
nations, ' twins of a single destiny,' appeal to the years to come." The 
sense of what follows is, — Mr. Swinburne thinks, — " Impress us with 
all ye have thought and done, which time cannot dare conceal." Mr. 
Forman is inclined to read as for us. He says : " To me the poet 
seems to invoke England and Spain to rise together and appeal to the 
future of Republican America, to impress on them, as from a seal, all 
that had been and should be thought and done by Republicanism in 
America ; and that invocation is supported by the simple proposition 
that Time cannot dare conceal anything^ Professor Woodberry in his 
note on the passage says : " The lines contain a twofold appeal : first, 
to the future, typified in America ; second, to the past, realized in 
Spanish and English history, or, by paraphrase, great ages that were 
and that Time will not dare forget, stamp on man's mind, with the clear 
and fixed impression of a seal, your image or memory. The difficulty 
arises from the condensation involved in the sudden identification of 
England and Spain with what they have thought and done, as being 
ideally what they essentially are, and in the abruptness with which 
the immortal memory of that achievement is then stated. The words 
* all ye have thought and done ' are to be taken as in the case of address." 

To the present editor the words "the eternal . . . West" seem to 
refer, not to the future, but to the past, — the years which have passed 



346 NOTES. 

into the west with setting suns ; the meaning of the second part of the 
passage is sufficiently indicated by Mr. Swinburne and Professor Wood- 
berry, though, as the former says, the construction falls to pieces. 

192 xiv. Appeal to Germany and to Italy. 

192 196. Arminius : the hero who, 9 a.d., maintained the liberties 
of Germany by checking the advance of the Romans beyond the Rhine. 

192 200-1. The poet refers to Germany's freedom in speculative 
thought, which has inspired her with new ideas, although political free- 
dom is wanting. 

192 xv-xvi. These stanzas are characteristic of the thought of 
Shelley and of the school to which he is inclined. Evil in the world is 
due mainly to bad government and to religion ; men freed from these 
two influences would naturally become good. 

193 xvii. Of what avail are skill and mastery of men if they volun- 
tarily make slaves of themselves "i 

193 248. And power in thought, etc. : ' If thought is capable of 
developing power, as the seed is capable of developing the tree,' or 
perhaps : ' If intellectual power is now to that which it will be as the 
seed is to the tree.' 

193 249-255. Of what avail is it that man by his art becomes master 
of natural forces, if wealth can extort from the poor and suffering the 
benefits resulting from art and liberty in the proportion of a thousand 
to one ? 

193 253-4. The cry of Art ends at " depth." 

193 254-5. "Wealth" is the subject of "can rend"; " thy " means 
Liberty's ; " hers," Arfs. 

194 xviii. Liberty will come to the world and bring with her Wis- 
dom, etc. 

194 258. Eoan wave : wave of dawn (Gk. r/ws, dawn). 

194 259. her: Wisdom's. 

194 270. The words of the "voice out of the deep" (1. 15) end at 
" tears." 

194 xix. The inspiration of the poetic seer vanishes. 



ARETHUSA. 

Arethusa was a fountain in the island of Ortygia n»ar Syracuse in 
Sicily ; Alpheus, a river in the Peloponnesus which in parts of its course 
flows underground. " This subterranean descent gave rise to the story 
about the river god Alpheus and the nymph Arethusa. The latter. 



NOTES. 347 

pursued by Alpheus, was changed by Artemis into the fountain of 
Arethusa, but the god continued to pursue her under the sea, and 
attempted to mingle his stream with the fountain in Ortygia." 

The reader will note the resemblance of this poem to The Cloud in 
general character and in versification. 

195 3. Acroceraunian mountains : Acroceraunia was the ancient 
name of a promontory in Epirus, formed by the western extremity of a 
chain known as the Ceraiinii Monies. 

195 24. Erymanthus : a mountain of Arcadia in the Peloponnesus. 

195 25-27. The south wind which Erymanthus concealed behind its 
snowy peaks. 

196 52-53. For the rhyme, cf. Hymn to Intellectnal Beauty, 11. 50-51, 
with note. 

197 60. unvalued : inestimable ; cf. "thy unvalued book "in Milton's 
Epitaph on Shakespeare. 

197 74. Enna : see note on Pronietheits, III, iii, 43. 
197 87. Ortygian : see introductory note on this poem. 



THE QUESTION. 

198 9. wind-flowers: see note on 77ie Sensitive Plant, 1. 17. 

198 10. Arcturi : Arcturus was the name of the constellation of the 
Little Bear, or of a star in it. This constellation never sets ; hence the 
ever-blooming daisies are called Arcturi (cf. To Jane — The Invitation, 
1. 58). 

198 13. The reference in " that tall flower " which drops dew upon 
the earth is uncertain ; "■ the most likely suggestions are * crown 
imperial,' large campanula, and tulip. See The Sensitive Plant: 'The 
pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall ' " (Miss M. A. Wood's Third Poetry 
Book). 

199 15. heaven's collected : so the existing MS. copies read, as also 
the text published in the poet's lifetime. Mrs. Shelley's edition reads 
heaven-collected, and she is followed by Forman. 



SONG OF PROSERPINE. 

Proserpine was the daughter of Demeter (the latter name probably 
signifies mother-earth), the goddess of the earth. Proserpine was 
carried off by the god of the lower world, but returned to spend a por- 



348 NOTES. 

tion of each year with her mother. The story is told in Ovid's Meta- 
morphoses, V. Proserpine probably symbolizes the seed-corn, which is 
buried, but comes again to life. 
Enna : see note on Areihiisa, 1. 4. 



HYMN OF APOLLO. 

This and the Hymn of Pan were written to be inserted in a drama by 
Edward Williams. Apollo and Pan were represented as contending 
before Tmolus for the prize in music. In this hymn Apollo appears as 
the sun god. 



PIYMN OF PAN. 

Pan was the god of flocks and shepherds ; he was the inventor of the 
shepherd's flute, which he constructed from a reed. 

202 11. Tmolus: the god of Mount Tmolus in Lydia; he is said to 
have been judge of a musical contest between Apollo and Pan. 

202 13-15. Peneus, Tempe, Pelion : a river, a valley, and a moun- 
tain in Thessaly. 

203 18. Sileni (satyrs) in Greek mythology were followers of Bacchus ; 
they dwelt in forests and partook somewhat of the nature of lower 
animals. Fatins were similar creatures of Latin mythology. Sylvans, 
spirits of the forest. 

203 26. daedal: marvellously wroiight; see on Prometheus, Act III, 
i, 26. 

203 30. Menalus : a mountain in Arcadia sacred to Pan. 



LETTER TO MARIA GISBORNE. 

This was written as a friendly letter, probably without the slightest 
idea of its ever becoming public, and exhibits Shelley in an easy, 
familiar vein. It was first printed in the PostJmmoiis Poems of 1824, but 
certain passages were omitted. A transcript in Mrs. Shelley's writing is 
in existence ; as also, at Boscombe, a very illegible draft in Shelley's 
hand. Mrs. Shelley says : " He addressed the letter to Mrs. Gisborne 
from this house [at Leghorn], which was hers; he made a study of the 



NOTES. 349 

workshop of her son, who was an engineer. Mrs. Gisborne had been a 
friend of my father in her younger days. She was a lady of great 
accomplishments, and charming from her frank and affectionate nature." 
For further particulars in regard to Mrs. Gisborne, see the Introduction, 
p. Ixii, and Dowden's Life., Vol. II, p. 206. 

203 1-14. Shelley represents himself as engaged in weaving poems, 
not to catch present applause, but lasting fame in the future. 

204 13. must is the reading of the Boscombe MS., but most of Mrs. 
Shelley's transcript and the edition of 1824. 

204 17. Archimedean: Archimedes of Syracuse (287-212 b.c.) was 
a famous mathematician and inventor of various mechanical appliances. 

204 24. Ixion or the Titan : the Titan is Prometheus ; both he 
and Ixion were submitted to tortures by Jupiter. 

204 25. St. Dominic : a Spaniard who flourished in the beginning 
of the thirteenth century and founded the order of Dominican Friars ; 
in the text there is reference to the part he took in the crusade against 
heretics. 

204 27-43. The reference is to instruments of torture sent by the 
Spaniards in the Armada. 

204 33-34. Referring to the uprisal in Spain in 1820 ; see notes on 
the Ode to Liberty., p. 343. 

204 34. Empire is apparently used here as a trisyllable ; cf . Frome- 
thetis, Act I, i, 15. 

204 35. With is to be construed with " giving," 1. 30. 

205 59. swink: w^ork ; a common word in earlier English. 

206 75. Forman and Dowden put a colon at the end of this line, 
without authority, and to the injury of the sense. The " hollow screw " 
is the " idealism of a paper boat " ; otherwise, as Professor Woodberry 
notes, the word " mischief " (1. 80) is without application. Shelley was 
addicted to sailing paper boats on streams and ponds (see the Introduc- 
tion, p. Ivii). 

206 81. them: the "bills and calculations " (1. 79). 

206 93-95. Treatises by various mathematical writers, from Saunder- 
son to Laplace, are strewed about. Laplace, distinguished French 
mathematician (1749-1827); Sawiderson, a blind mathematician, pro- 
fessor at Cambridge in the early part of the last century ; Sims, a 
mathematical instrument maker of the time (Ellis's Conco7-daiice) ; 
Baron de Tott, a diplomatist, traveller, and author, 1733-93. 

206 ]03. as Spenser says: this clause applies to "with many mo," 
" mo " being a form of }?iore frequently found in Spenser and other 
elder writers. 



3 5 o A^C TES. 

207 106-112. These lines refer to the opposition which Shelley's 
writings stirred up among the orthodox in literature and theology. 

207 J 14. Libeccio : Italian name for the southwest wind. 

208 146-7. Almost the same lines occur in Epipsychidion, 11. 41-42. 

208 164. Mr. Forman paraphrases this line, " when we shall again 
be as once we were but no longer are," but adds that he is morally cer- 
tain that Shelley meant to write, " when we shall be no longer as we 
are." 

209 175-6. indued : put on, acquired ; Mrs. Gisborne instructed 
Shelley in Spanish. 

209 181. Calderon : the greatest of Spanish dramatists (1600-81). 

209 197. Godwin : the father of Mrs. Shelley, author of Political 
Justice^ a book which exercised a profound influence upon Shelley's 
views (see the Introduction, pp. xxxii ff.). 

210 209. Hunt : Leigh Hunt, the well-known writer and friend of 
Shelley. 

210 213. Shout : according to Mr. Forman, an obscure manufac- 
turer of casts in London at the time. 

210 226. Hogg : Jefferson Hogg, the college friend and biographer of 
Shelley. 

210 233. Peacock : Thomas Love Peacock, poet, novelist, and friend 
of Shelley. 

his mountain fair : his mountain beauty, i.e., the Welsh lady whom 
Peacock had this year married. 

210 234. Turned into a Flamingo: Shelley, playing upon the name 
of his friend, says that he has turned from a peacock into a flamingo, 
because the latter is a shy bird, and since his marriage Peacock has 
scarcely allowed himself to be seen by his friends. 

210 239. Snowdonian Antelope: again, Mrs. Peacock; Snowdon 
is the well-known Welsh mountain. 

211 240. cameleopard: perhaps, as is suggested in Ellis's Shelley 
Concordance, a figurative expression for a tall, handsome person, 

211 250. Horace Smith, another of Shelley's friends, was a wealthy 
London stock-broker with literary predilections ; along with his brother 
James he wrote the famous Rejected Addresses which parodied the 
styles of various poets. 

211 253. The writer now begins a description of the external scenes 
visible, at the moment, to Mrs. Gisborne and himself, respectively. 

211 272. The editor is unable to identify " the yellow-haired 
Pollonia." 

212 286. Contadino : an Italian peasant. 



NOTES. 351 

213 312. Shelley was subject to nervous attacks for which he took 
laudaiium (see Dowden's Life^ Vol. I, pp. 226, 433). 

213 316-7. Helicon : a mountain in Boeotia, sacred to the Muses. 

Himeros: ""I^iepos, from which the river Himera was named, is, with 
some slight shade of difference, a synonym for Love" (Shelley's note). 

In these lines the poet seems to say that he will not soothe his nerves 
either with poetry or with love. 

213 322. This is the last line of Milton's Lycidas. 



ODE TO NAPLES. 

The events which occasioned this ode are mentioned in the diary of 
Miss Clairmont, who was living with the Shelleys at the time, under 
date July 16, 1820: "Report of the Revolution at Naples. The people 
assembled round the palace [July 2] demanding a constitution ; the 
king ordered his troops to fire and disperse the crowd ; they refused, 
and he has now promised a constitution. The head of them is the 
Duke of Campo Chiaro. This is glorious, and is produced by the 
Revolution in Spain " (Dowden's Life, Vol. II, p. 342). 

Mr. Swinburne says in regard to the designation of the parts of the 
ode as epodes, strophes, etc. : " They are, as far as I can see, hopelessly 
muddled; beginning with an Epode (after-song!)." 

213 1. the city disinterred : Pompeii. 

213 4. The Mountain : Vesuvius. 

214 11. The light reflected from the surface of the Mediterranean, 
between the sky above and its image in the water below. 

214 24. close : a musical cadence. 

214 25. ^olian sound : perhaps ' with a sound like an ^olian harp.' 
"^olian " is itself derived from ALohis, the name of the god of the winds. 

214 26. Baian ocean : the neighboring part of the Mediterranean ; 
see note on The Sensitive Plant, III, 1. 3. 

214 32. It: the reference is not clear, perhaps to "Power divine" 
(1. 21). 

214 33. whose refers to " Angel." 

214 35-43. These lines state in metaphorical terms that the poet is 
carried away by poetic inspiration. 

214 40. Aornos : " kopvo% Xi/xvij is applied to Lake Avernus, which, 
according to ancient story, was connected with the lower world. Hence, 
"Aornos" may here mean Hades, as opposed to Elysium in 1. 42. 



352 NOTES. 

215 44. that Typhaean mount, Inarime : Inarime is a name of the 
island of Ischia, northwest of the Bay of Naples. It contained an active 
volcano ; hence the monster Typkanis or Typhon was said to lie buried 
beneath it, as Enceladus beneath ^Etna. 

215 57. Cf. " Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise " in Adonais, 1. 88. 

215 58-6]. These lines refer to the recent bloodless revolution. 

216 77. Cimmerian Anarchs : the Cimmerii, according to Greek 
myth, dwelt in a land of perpetual darkness to the north ; hence the 
fitness of applying the epithet here to the tyrannical governments of 
Europe, Austria, etc. 

216 81. Actaeon : a huntsman who saw Artemis (Diana) bathing 
and was thereupon pursued and devoured by his own hounds. 

216 82. Basilisk. This mythical monster was able to slay by the 
look merely. The word is derived from the Greek word for ' king ' ; 
hence the epithet " imperial." 

217 102. See introductory notes to this poem and to the Ode to Liberty. 
217 110. Doria : Andrea Doria, a great Genoese admiral, who in the 

earlier part of the sixteenth century victoriously fought for the inde- 
pendence of the republic of Genoa. 

217 124. Philippi's shore : the reference is to the battle of Philippi 
(42 B c), where Erutus and Cassius, the representatives of republican 
principles, were defeated by Octavius. 

217 127. Earth-born Forms : the Titans, who w^ere children of the 
Earth, and made war on the gods. 

218 137. The Anarchs of the North: Austria and other northern 
powers. The language of the context is doubtless suggested by the 
invasions of ancient Italy by northern barbarians. 

218 149 ff. An appeal to the Spirit of Love and Beauty which the 
poet so often treats as a real entity. 

219 173. Ausonian: Italian. 



GOOD NIGHT. 

This song first appeared in The Literary Pocket-Book for 1822. It 
was one of the poems given to Miss Stacey in December, 1820; this 
MS. still exists, and exhibits several variations from the version in this 
text. 

219 1. Stacey MS. reads : '* Good-night .?" No, love, the night is ill 
219 5. Stacey MS. reads : How xvere the night "without thee good? 



NOTES. 353 

219 9. Stacey MS. reads : The hearts that on each other beat. 
219 11-12. Stacey MS. reads: Have nights as good as they are sweet. 

But never say '•'■good-night?'' 



THE WORLD'S WANDERERS. 

Mr. Forman conjectures that a stanza is lacking, of which the last 
line would have rhymed with "billow." 



TIME LONG PAST. 
221 17. Beauty comes from the past, as well as memories. 



SONNET (" Ye hasten to the grave"). 

This sonnet was first published in The Literary Pocket-Book for 1823. 
Two MSS. exist : one at Harvard ; the other was sold among the Oilier 
MSS. 

221 1. grave : in the Oilier MS. dead, the reading of the earlier 
editions, is scored out, z.\\^ grave substituted. 

221 5. pale Expectation : the reading of the Oilier MS. ; elsewhere 
anticipatioH. 



TO NIGHT. 



223 1. over: in the Harvard MS. the reading cVr is found, which 
is adopted by Woodberry ; this makes the versification correspond to 
that of the first lines in the other stanzas. 

224 19. his : Mr. Rossetti makes the plausible emendation her, on 
the ground that " Day " in stanza ii is a feminine impersonation. It is 
quite likely, however, that the conception of Day in the poet's mind 
had changed ; the masculine personification seems more suitable to 
the context here. 



354 NOTES. 



FROM THE ARABIC. 



Medwin says that this is almost a translation from a passage in 
Afitar, a Bedoween Romaticc, by Terrick Hamilton (London, 1819 and 
1820). 



TO EMILIA VIVIANI. 

The first eleven lines of this poem were included in rostJmmous 
Poems ; the last three have been added since from the Boscombe MS. 
through Dr. Garnett. 



EPIPSYCHIDION. 

In the autumn of 1820, the Shelleys, who were then residing in Pisa, 
became acquainted with a young, beautiful, and sentimental Italian 
lady, Emilia Viviani, who was confined by her relatives in the convent 
of St. Anna. The acquaintance ripened into friendship. About the 
close of the year Mary Shelley writes in a letter to Leigh Hunt : " It is 
grievous to see this beautiful girl wearing out the best years of her life 
in an odious convent, where both mind and body are sick for want of 
appropriate exercise for each. I think she has great talent, if not 
genius — or if not an internal fountain how could she have acquired 
the mastery she has of her own language, whi&h she whites so beauti- 
fully, or those ideas which lift her far above the rest of the Italians .? She 
has not studied much, and now, hopeless from a five years' confine- 
ment, everything disgusts her, and she looks with hatred and distaste 
even on the alleviations of her situation. Her only hope is in marriage, 
which her parents tell her is concluded, although she has never seen 
the person intended for her." A week or two later Shelley writes to 
Miss Clairmont : " I see Emily sometimes, and whether her presence 
is the source of pleasure or pain to me, I am equally ill-fated in both. 
I am deeply interested in her destiny, and that interest can in no man- 
ner influence it. She is not, however, insensible to my sympathy, and 
she counts it among her alleviations. As much comfort as she receives 
from my attachment to her, I lose. There is no reason that you should 
fear any mixture of that which you call love. My conception of 
Emilia's talents augments every day. Her moral nature is fine, but 
not above circumstances ; yet I think her tender and true, which is 



NOTES. 355 

always something. How many are only one of these things at a 
time ! " (Uowden's Ljfe, Vol. II, p. 389). 

Emilia's misfortunes, her beauty, her intellectual vivacity attracted 
Shelley. Her ardent, sentimental, and impressionable nature (see the 
extracts from her letters in Dowden's Life, Vol. II, pp. 373-7) caught 
and reflected Shelley's peculiar ideas and feelings, so that she seemed 
to him that complementary soul for which he had long been seeking, 
the pursuit of which is embodied in Alastor. " Emilia," says Professor 
Dowden (Vol. II, p. 378), "beautiful, spiritual, sorrowing, became for 
him a type and symbol of what Goethe names ' the eternal feminine,' a 
type and symbol of all that is most radiant and divine in nature, all 
that is most remote and unattainable, yet ever to be pursued — the 
ideal of beauty, truth, and love. She was at once a living and breath- 
ing woman, young, lovely, ardent, afflicted, and the avatar of the 
Ideal." Epipsychidion is the poetic embodiment of the feelings awak- 
ened by this supposed discovery of the " avatar of the Ideal." But his 
illusion in regard to Emilia was very brief. On February 16, 182 1, he 
sent Epipsychidion with some shorter poems to his publisher. Oilier. 
" The longer poem," wrote Shelley, " I desire should not be considered 
as my own ; indeed, in a certain sense, it is a production of a portion 
of me already dead ; and in this sense the advertizement is no fiction. 
It is to be published simply for the esoteric few ; and I make its author 
a secret, to avoid the malignity of those who turn sweet food into 
poison, transforming all they touch into the corruption of their own 
nature." Again, he writes to Mrs. Gisborne, "The 'Epipsychidion' is 
a mystery ; as to real flesh and blood, you know that I do not deal in 
these articles ; you might as well go to a gin-shop for a leg of mutton, 
as expect anything human and earthly from me. I desired Oilier not 
to circulate this piece except to the crvveroi, and even they, it seems, are 
inclined to approximate me to the circle of a servant-girl and her sweet- 
heart." On another occasion he says : " The ' Epipsychidion ' I can- 
not look at ; the person whom it celebrates was a cloud instead of a 
Juno ; and poor Ixion starts from the Centaur that was the offspring 
of his own embrace. If you are curious, however, to hear what I am 
and have been, it will tell you something thereof. It is an idealized 
history of my own life and feelings. I think one is always in love with 
something or other ; the error — I confess it is not easy for spirits 
cased in flesh and blood to avoid it — consists in seeking in a mortal 
image the likeness of what is, perhaps, eternal." 

The ideal, the pursuit of which is described in the poem before us, 
may be better understood through the following extract from Shelley's 



356 NOTES. 

Essay on Love, Prose Works, Vol. II, Forman's edition, pp. 268-9 • "^^ 
we reason, we would be understood ; if we imagine, we would that the 
airy children of our brain were born anew in another's ; if we feel, we 
would that another's nerves should vibrate to our own, that the beams 
of their eyes should kindle at once and mix and melt into our own ; 
that lips of motionless ice should not reply to lips quivering and burn- 
ing with the heart's best blood. This is Love. . . . The discovery of 
its antitype ; the meeting with an understanding capable of clearly 
estimating our own ; an imagination which should enter into, and seize 
upon the subtle and delicate peculiarities which we have delighted to 
cherish and unfold in secret ; with a frame whose nerves, like the 
chords of two exquisite lyres, strung to the accompaniment of one 
delightful voice, vibrate with vibrations of our own ; and of a combina- 
tion of all these in such proportions as the type within demands ; this 
is the invisible and unattainable point to which Love tends ; and to 
attain which it urges forth the powers of man to arrest the faintest 
shadow of that, without the possession of which there is no rest nor 
respite to the heart over which it rules." In another prose piece of 
Shelley, a fragment in Italian recovered by Dr. Garnett, the theme of 
Epipsychidiofi is treated (see Forman, Prose Works, Vol. Ill, pp. 83 ff. 
for this piece and Dr. Garnett's translation). 

The influence of Plato, more particularly of the Symposumi (see 
Shelley's translation in Forman's edition of the Prose Works, Vol. Ill), 
is evident in this poem, which also owes something to Dante, whose 
works Shelley had been diligently reading since his arrival in Italy. 
The passage translated from Dante's Coiivito, and the reference in the 
Advertizement to the Vita Nuova indicate a special connection between 
the Epipsychidioii and these two works.^ 

227. Motto : the Italian motto on the title-page is from a little 
essay, // Vero Amore (The True Love), written by Emilia after reading 
the Symposium of Plato. (This essay with a translation is given by 
Med win in his Life of Shelley, Vol. II, quoted in Appendix of Forman's 
edition of the Poetical Works, Vol. II.) The following is Medwin's 
translation of the words quoted in the motto : " The soul of him who 
loves launches itself out of the created, and creates in the infinite a 
world for itself, and for itself alone, how different from this obscure 
and fearful den." 



1 Again, Dr. Ackermann's pamphlet may be consulted for an examination of sources 
in detail. An essay on the poem by Mr. Stopford Brooke is prefixed to the reprint of 
the original edition among the Shelley Society s Publications. 



NOTES. 357 

229. Advertizement : the poem was published anonymously, and 
the Advertizement is a description by Shelley of the imaginary writer. 

229 15-18. The Italian quotation is from Dante's Vita Niiova, XXV, 
and is thus translated by Mr. Rossetti : " Great were his shame who 
should rhyme anything under a garb of metaphor or rhetorical colour, 
and then, being asked should be incapable of stripping his words of this 
garb so that they might have a veritable meaning." 

229 21. from Dante's famous Canzone : the stanza translated is the 
last verse of the first Canzone of Dante's Convito. 

Epipsychidion : " Shelley translates his title in the line, — 

' Whither 't was fled this soul out of my soul: ' 

and the word Epipsychidion is coined by him to express the idea of 
that line. It might mean ' something which is placed on the soul,' as 
if to complete or crown it. Or it might be, and more probably was, 
intended by Shelley to be a diminutive of endearment from Epipsyc/ie. 
There is no such Greek word as eiri-^vx-n- But Epipsyche would 
mean ' a soul upon a soul,' just as Epicycle, in the Ptolemaic astronomy, 
meant * a circle upon a circle.' Such ' a soul on a soul ' might be para- 
phrased as ' a soul which is the complement of, or responsive to an- 
other soul,' i.e., to the soul of the poet, so that each soul seeks to be 
united with that other, to be in harmony wherewith it has been created. 
This idea, many suggestions of which may be found in Plato, seems 
most clearly expressed in the lines near the end of the poem beginning, 
' One passion in two hearts ' " (Stopford Brooke's Foenis of Shelley, 
pp. 329-330). In his Essay on Love Shelley speaks of " a soul within 
our soul," whose " antitype " is described in the quotation, p. 356, above. 

230 1. The poem opens with an address to Emilia. 

230 1-2. that orphan one, etc. : Emilia's spiritual sister is Mary 
Shelley, whose mother died in giving birth to her ; the name is Shelley's 
own name. In many letters from Emilia to Mary, the latter is ad- 
dressed as Cava Sorella (Dear Sister). 

230 5. thy narrow cage : the convent of St. Anna, in which she 
was detained against her will. 

230 21. The poet proceeds to identify Emilia with the Eternal 
Spirit of Beauty which rules the universe (cf. Hyvin to Intellectual 
Beauty, the concluding stanzas of Adonais, etc.). 

231 38. The soul is only dimly revealed through the eyes. 

231 41-42. The ideal which he had formed in his youth (cf. 
Alastor). 



358 • NOTES. 

231 43-44. The world will conceal by some gross name the true char- 
acter of my love to you (see the Advej'tizement, and the extracts from 
Shelley's letters, p. 355). 

231 44. unvalued : not regarded by the poet. 

231 46. another : Mary. 

231 48. Uniting two incarnations of the Eternal Beauty; cf. 1. 115. 

231 49. one refers to 11. 46-48 : if it were lawful that you should 
both be united to me by the same tie. 

the other refers to 1. 45 : if we had been sister and brother. 

The passage gives a glimpse at the morbid aberration of Shelley's 
views in regard to the relations of the sexes which appears repeatedly 
both in his writings and his life. 

231 55. should teach Time, in his own gray style : should express 
in the language of time, or the ordinary world, as distinguished from 
the language of the infinite and mystical world. 

232 68. Wingless, and hence such as will not fly away. 

232 71. Mine own infirmity : viz., his inability to express what she is. 

232 75. Note the correspondence of "light," "life," "peace," re- 
spectively, with the three preceding comparisons (11. 73-74). 

232 77 ff. " This is an extreme example of Shelley's attempt to 
clothe in some sensuous form his tenuous spiritual conceptions. The 
spiritual beauty of the woman is made to shed an actual halo, — an 
effluence, about her" (Professor Winchester). 

232 86. planetary music : the fabulous music of the spheres. 

232 87-89. In her eyes her emotions are seen, — the reflections of 
the changes which her soul undergoes. 

233 100. morning quiver: Mr. Rossetti reads, viorn may quiver. 
Mr. Forman considers this a case in which Shelley uses the subjunctive 
mood, and cites a similar case from the twenty-second stanza of Laon 
and Cythna. Mr. Alfred Forman suggests that Shelley felt "pulse " as 
a plural here. 

233 117. In the ancient system of astronomy, the heavenly bodies 
were conceived as fastened in a series of transparent concentric spheres 
moving about the Earth. The sphere nearest the Earth was that of 
the Moon ; the second, that of Mercury ; the third, that of Venus ; 
accordingly, Emilia is here identified with the goddess of love. The 
line is evidently suggested by the line of Dante quoted in the Adver- 
tizement, 1. 23. 

233 122. Anatomy : used in the sense of a withered, lifeless form ; 
Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors, V, i, 238-9: 

A hungry lean-faced villain, a mere anatomy. 



NOTES. 359 

234 130. Fate : the poet's own fate. 

234 142-6. For a similar conception of Love, see Shelley's Essay on 
Love, Prose Works, Forman's edition, Vol. II (quoted in part, p. 356). 
234 148. Beacon : set a beacon upon. 

234 153. 'tis: the reading of the Boscombe MS. The ordinary 
reading is it is. 

235 160-173. This passage is especially characteristic of the poet's 
views and temperament. It may be compared with the mystical doctrines 
of Diotima in Plato's Symposiicm, for example, with the following pas- 
sage as translated by Shelley himself {Prose Works, Vol. Ill, p. 219) : 
" He who aspires to love rightly, ought from his earliest youth to seek an 
intercourse with beautiful forms, and first to make a single form the 
object of his love, and therein to generate intellectual excellences. He 
ought, then, to consider that beauty in whatever form it resides is the 
brother of that beauty which subsists in another form; and if he 
ought to pursue that which is beautiful in form, it w'ould be absurd to 
imagine that beauty is not one and the same thing in all forms, and 
would therefore remit much of his ardent preferences towards one, 
through his perception of the multitude of claims upon his love. . . ." 
Diotima goes on to describe how one should then rise above mere 
beauty of form, to beauty of soul, thence to beauty of conduct, of knowl- 
edge, and of wisdom, until finally " he who has been disciplined to this 
point of Love, by contemplating beautiful objects gradually, and in their 
order, now arriving at the end of all that concerns Love, on a sudden 
beholds a beauty wonderful in its nature." This beauty she proceeds 
to describe in the passage quoted in the introductory note to the Hymn 
to Intellectual Beaiity,,-^. 309, above. 

235 174. in this : viz., in what follows, 11. 178-183. 

235 186-9. The 'world of life ' is good and beautiful, yet marred by 
ugliness ; a garden, yet ravaged ; an Elysium, yet a wilderness. 

236 190. a Being : the poet's ideal ; with the whole passage cf. 
Alastor, especially 11. 150-180. 

236 221. in the owlet light : this phrase refers to the flight of the 
"dizzy moth," not to that of the " dead leaf." The epithet "owlet" is 
used to suggest the dim, uncanny light wiiich the moth seeks to 
exchange for that of the Evening Star. 

237 228. cone : the word is suggested by the form of the shadow 
cast by heavenly bodies. 

237 240. sightless : invisible ; cf. Alastor, 1. 610. 
237 253. those untaught foresters : " the dwellers in the wintry for- 
est of our life " (1. 249). 



360 NOTES. 

237 256-266. Actual persons have been conjecturally mentioned as 
being in the poet's mind when writing the descriptions of those he 
encountered in his search for the ideal (see, for example, F. G. Fleay's 
article in Poet Lore, Vol. II, No. 5, and Dr. Ackermann's Qiiellen, etc.). 
Such identification, even when certain, is not needful for the under- 
standing of the poem. Here we have a description of the merely sensual 
love. In Plato's Symposium, two Venuses and two kinds of love are 
spoken of (see Shelley's translation, Prose Works, Vol. Ill, pp. 176-7), 
the Uranian or Heavenly, and the Pandemian or Common. The latter 
sort of love does not elevate, but degrades, and is the species described 
in this passage. 

238 262. honey-dew, though sweet, blights the leaves upon which it 
is formed. 

238 271. Possibly Harriet may be referred to in this line. 
238 277. One : Mary. 

238 285-307. In metaphorical language Shelley describes Mary's 
influence upon him ; she brought him peace, but at the expense of the 
highest ideals. He sank into a kind of apathy, and lost his ardor for 
the ideal. He lived neither in the commonplace nor in the ideal world. 
The difference between the highest life and spiritual death became 
imperceptible to him. 

239 308-320. He is roused from his lethargy by some violent and 
painful experiences, — perhaps those connected with the death of 
Harriet. Again comes a period, of deadness and coldness, followed by 
further stormy experiences, of which " the Moon " knew nothing. 
These may be the mysterious troubles at Naples towards the close of 
18 18, of which there are hints in his biography and writings (see 
Stanzas Written in Dejection, with notes). " The Planet of the hour " 
in that case would perhaps be the noble and infatuated lady who, 
according to Medwin, followed Shelley from England to Naples and 
there died (see Dowden's Life, Vol. II, p. 252). 

240 345. Twin Spheres : Emilia the sun, and Mary the moon. 

241 368. Comet, etc. : probably the same as " the Planet of that 
hour" (1. 313) ; but, if this be so, the identification of "the Planet of 
the hour" with the noble lady must be incorrect, since she was already 
dead. Mr. Fleay identifies the " Comet " with the " Constantia " 
addressed in several of the lyrical poems, and Constantia with Claire 
Clairmont (see Introduction, p. 1). 

241 369. drew: for drezu'st ; cf. To a Skylark, 1. 80. 
241 .-^72. that: "The heart of this frail universe" (1. 369), i.e., the 
poet's own heart. 



NOTES. 361 

241 374. On thy return take thy place among these other spheres, 
as the Evening Star. 
folding-star : cf. Milton's Comus, 11. 93-94 : 

The star that bids the shepherd fold 
Now to the top of Heav'n doth hold. 

241 381-3. heart is parallel to "World"; "offerings," to "sacri- 
fice " ; " Their " refers to " Hope and Fear." The offerings of Hope 
and Fear are piled upon the altar of the heart ; the sacrifice divine, 
described in 11. 377-9, will be offered on the altar of the World. 

242 388-393. The transcendental and mystical character of his feel- 
ings tovi^ards Emilia is emphasized in these lines. 

242 392. Not mine but me : the body may be described as ' mine,' 
but * me ' is something deeper, my own personality, — it is to this that 
is used thou must be united. 

242 400. continents : in the original sense, — ' that which contains '; 
cf. Shakespeare, Midsummer-Night'' s Dream, II, ii, 92, where the word 
is used of the banks of a river. 

242 405. it: Love. 

242 408. Cf. the quotation from a letter, Introduction, p. Ixviii. The 
voyage contemplated, however, is not a voyage in space, the scenes 
described are not intended to represent anything actual ; description, as 
in A/aslor, is employed to suggest conceptions of impalpable things, — 
feelings, yearnings, ideal conditions. 

243 454. The punctuation, which is that of the original, is peculiar. 
Mr. Rossetti and Professor Woodberry substitute a comma for the 
semicolon, — a change which serves to make the meaning clearer. 

244 459. Lucifer : the morning star ; the word literally means ' light- 
bearer.' 

247 557. kill thine, etc. : close thy eyes. 

248 601. Marina was a pet name for Mary. " Vanna" maybe Mrs. 
Williams, and " Primus," Edward Williams or Lord Byron. The name 
Vanna was probably suggested by Dante's Monna Vanna. 



TO — (" Music when soft voices die "). 
248 7. thoughts is governed by " on " in the next line. 



362 NOTES. 

SONG (" Rarely, rarely, comest thou"). 
250 41. What difference except that thou dost possess, etc. .? 



ADONAIS. 



The two poets Shelley and Keats first met at the house of their 
common friend, Leigh Hunt, in 1817. They were not specially drawn 
to one another ; Keats, at least, was inclined to hold aloof from Shelley, 
and their acquaintance never ripened into intimacy. In 18 18 Keats's 
first notable poem, Eiidyniion., was published. Of it Shelley wrote in a 
private letter, dated September 6, 1819 : " Much praise is due to me for 
having read it, the author's intention appearing to be that no person 
should possibly get to the end of it. Yet it is full of some of the highest 
and finest gleams of poetry : indeed, everything seems to be viewed by 
the mind of a poet which is described in it. I think if he had printed 
about fifty pages of fragments from it, I should have been led to admire 
Keats as a poet more than I ought — of which there is now no danger." 
Of this poem there appeared a savage review in The Qiiarterly for 
April, 18 18, — a review which doubtless made a very painful impression 
on Keats ; though it did not, as Shelley heard and believed, shorten the 
poet's life. In the beginning of 1820 Keats had an attack of hemor- 
rhage from the lungs, and by midsummer his disease had become so 
serious as to make a residence in a warmer climate imperative. Having 
heard of this, Shelley, in a kindly letter of July 27, urged Keats to be 
his guest at Pisa. The latter did not accept the invitation, although 
he went to Italy in September, first to Naples, then to Rome, where, in 
February, 1821, he died. In the summer of 1820 Keats's last volume 
had been published, containing Isabella, Hyperion, The Eve of St. Agnes, 
etc. Hyperion gave Shelley a new opinion as to Keats's powers. He 
wrote to Mrs. Leigh Hunt, November 11, 1820: "Keats's new volume 
arrived to us, and the fragment called Hyperion promises for him that 
he is destined to become one of the first writers of the age. His other 
things are imperfect enough, and, what is worse, written in a bad sort 
of style which is becoming fashionable among those who fancy that 
they are imitating Hunt and Wordsworth." Again, he wrote to Pea- 
cock, February 15, 1821 : "His other poems are worth little; but if 
Hyperion be not grand poetry, none has been produced by our contem- 
poraries." Soon after Keats's death Shelley wrote the Adonais. On 



NOTES. 363 

June 5, 1 82 1, he says : " I have been engaged these last days in compos- 
mg a poem on the death of Keats, which will shortly be finished. ... It 
is a highly wrought //trc' of art., and perhaps better in point of composi- 
tion than anything I have written." In a letter of September 25 he 
says: " The Adonais in spite of its mysticism is the least imperfect of my 
compositions, and, as an image of my regret and honour for poor Keats, 
I wish it to be so." 

As suggested in the former of these two letters, the Adonais is some- 
what artificial in form, following the model of the Greek pastoral elegy, 
as does also the Lycidas of Milton, which was doubtless in Shelley's 
mind as he wrote. To two Greek poems, Bion's Elegy on the Death of 
Adonis and the Epitaph oji Bion ascribed to Moschus, Shelley is espe- 
cially indebted, both for general hints and for individual phrases and 
passages. Of both these Greek poems Shelley made fragmentary trans- 
lations, which are to be found in the collected editions of his works. 
Apart from these, the general influence of Shelley's familiarity with 
the Greek and Latin classics is, in the Adonais, more than usually 
apparent. 

The beauty and power of the Adonais do not lie in the truth and 
intensity with which the feeling of grief is depicted. No strong tie of 
affection bound the poets together. The interest of the theme for 
Shelley, as for the reader, is in the resemblance between Keats's circum- 
stances and those of his elegist. Like Keats, Shelley was a youthful 
poet, inspired by genuine devotion to the beautiful, unrecognized, mis- 
apprehended, and misrepresented. The possibility of early death, 
which would make the parallelism complete (as the subsequent fact 
does render it complete for the reader), was often present in Shelley's 
mind. As in Alastor, so here the poet contemplates and embodies his 
own lot if cut off in the immaturity of power and fame. In another's 
fate he weeps his owm. It is this personal note which lends the needed 
sincerity and pathos to the highly wrought and sometimes rather fan- 
ciful expression of the poem. In addition, the subject brings up the 
mystery of future existence and of the relation of the individual to the 
universe. It is this which forms the substance of the later and finer 
portion of the Adojiais. Here the writer gives expression to a thought 
which is akin to, if different from, thoughts which appear in Words- 
worth's poetry (in Tintern Abbey, for example) and in the closing 
lyrics of Tennyson's In Memoriam, — the idea of the presence of one 
divine informing spirit in all nature, of which the soul of man is but a 
single manifestation. It is significant that in the Adonais this one 
spirit is conceived scarcely as a personal and moral force, — not as God, 



364 NOTES. 

but as a sort of vague abstraction or tendency, which makes, not 
primarily for righteousness, but for beauty and truth. 

253. The motto : Shelley elsewhere translates these lines : 

Thou wert the morning star among the living, 

Ere thy fair light had fled ; 
Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving 

New splendour to the dead. 

254. Preface : the Greek lines prefixed are translated by Andrew 
Lang {^Theocritus., Bion, and Moschus, re7idered into English Prose) : 
"Poison came, Bion, to thy mouth — thou didst know poison. To 
such lips as thine did it come, and was not sweetened ? What mortal 
was so cruel that could mix poison for thee, or who could give thee the 
venom that heard thy voice ? Surely he had no music in his soul." 

Adonais : this name is applied to Keats in order, apparently, to con- 
nect the poem with Bion's Elegy on Adojiis. The opening lines of 
this elegy suggested the first stanza of Adonais ; it is thus translated 
by Shelley (Forman's edition. Vol. IV, p. 232) : 

I mourn for Adonis dead — loveliest Adonis — 
Dead, dead Adonis — and the Loves lament. 
Sleep no more, Venus, wrapped in purple woof — 
Make violet-stoled queen, and weave the crown 
Of death, — 't is Misery calls, — for he is dead. 

256 3. SO dear a head: a classic metonomy; cf. tam carl capitis 
(Horace, Odes, I, 24). 

256 5. Rouse the other hours which are not made memorable by 
the death of Adonais. 

256 12. Urania : the word literally means ' pertaining to heaven,' 
and was applied by the Greeks to the muse of astronomy. Milton, in 
the opening passage of Paradise Lost, abandons the Greek usage, and 
personifies under this name the highest poetic inspiration, the heavenly 
spirit (so also Tennyson, In Memoriam, xxxvii). Shelley here prob- 
ably refers to Uranian Aphrodite (see p. 309), the spirit of heavenly 
love, which he regards as the regenerating force of the universe. This 
interpretation is confirmed by the fact that in Bion's elegy Aphrodite 
takes the part assigned to Urania in the present poem. 

256 15. one : one of the Echoes repeats to Urania the songs which 
Adonais composed in his last days 

257 29-45. The loss of Adonais recalls Urania's loss of other sons. 
257 29-36. The reference is to Milton. 



NOTES. 365 

257 35. clear Sprite : doubtless a reminiscence of the phrase in 
Lycidas : " Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise." 

257 36. the third, etc. : in his Defence of Poetry Shelley calls 
Homer the first, Dante the second, and Milton the third epic poet. 

257 37-43. Not alj ^oets belong to the highest order, and those are 
fortunate who, recognizing their own limitations, have devoted them- 
selves to the lesser kinds of poetry to which they were suited, and so 
have produced works which still live, instead of wasting their energies 
on subjects too great for them. There are others who had the ability 
to produce great works, but through unfavorable circumstances were 
prevented from doing so. And some are now alive, struggling with 
various difficulties which stand in the way of success. 

257 46-72. The poem returns to Adonais lying yet unburied at 
Rome. 

257 47. widowhood: the age of Keats is, by this metaphor, repre- 
sented as a time unfavorable to the highest sort of poetry. 

257 48-49. An allusion to Yi^QdLt&'s Isabella, or the Pot of Basil, where 

the heroine 

Hung over her sweet basil evermore 
And moistened it with tears unto the core. 

258 55. that high Capital : Rome, which with its ruins and memo- 
ries of the past seems the special seat of Death, 

258 63. liquid: a classic use of the word; cf. Liquida nocte {yEneid, 
X, 272), Per aestatem liquidam {^Georg. IV, 59) ; so Gray, Ode on the 
Spring, 1. 27. 

258 68. His extreme way, etc. : to mark out the path of Adonais, 
— the last path he will ever travel, — to the dwelling-jDlace of Cor- 
ruption. 

258 69. The eternal Hunger : i.e., Corruption. 

258 73-190. The poet fancifully personifies the thoughts, desires, 
etc., of Adonais, and represents them as bewailing him. The pas- 
sage is suggested by the elegy on Bion : " Thy sudden doom, O Bion, 
Apollo himself lamented, and the Satyrs mourned thee, and the Priapi 
in sable raiment, and the Panes sorrow for thy song, and the fountain 
fairies in the wood made moan, and their tears turned to rivers of 
waters " (Lang's translation). Mr. Rossetti also notes that " the trance 
of Adonis attended by Cupids forms an incident in Keats's own poem of 
Endymion, Book II." 

258 75-76. This allegorical method of expression belongs to Pastoral 
Poetry ; cf . Lycidas, where the poet's stipes at Cambridge are referred 
to in language describing the pursuits of shepherds. 



366 NOTES. 

259 80. after their sweet pain : after the pangs of their birth. 

259 88. a ruined Paradise : the mind of the dead poet. 

259 91-99. Cf. Bion's Elegy on Adonis: "He reclines, the delicate 
Adonis, in his raiment of purple, and around him the Loves are weep- 
ing and groaning aloud, clipping their locks for Adonis. And one 
upon his shafts, another on his bow, is treading, and one hath loosed 
the sandal of Adonis, and another hath broken his own feathered 
quiver, and one in a golden vessel bears water, and another laves the 
wound, and another, from behind him, with his wings is fanning 
Adonis." 

259 102-4. Which gave it strength, etc. : i.e., the intellect (of the 
reader), which is cautious in accepting ideas, is, nevertheless, captivated 
by the force and beauty which the poet lends to them. 

259 104. the damp death : probably the damps of death on the 
lips of Adonais. Mr. Rossetti suggests that " the damp death " may 
be another name for the "Splendour" (1. loo); this "obtains some 
confirmation from the succeeding phrase about the 'dying metaphor.' " 

260 107. clips : embraces, as often in Spenser and elsewhere. 
260 120-153. Nature also mourns for Adonais. 

Cf. the following passage from Lang's translation of the Elegy on 
Bion : " Ye flowers, now in sad clusters breathe yourselves away. 
Now redden, ye roses, in your sorrow, and now wax red, ye wind- 
flowers ; now, thou hyacinth, whisper the letters on thee graven, and 
add a deeper ai ai to thy petals ; he is dead, the beautiful singer. . . . 
Ye nightingales that lament among the thick leaves of the trees, tell 
ye to the Sicilian waters of Arethusa the tidings that Bion the herds- 
man is dead. . . . And Echo in the rocks laments that thou art silent, 
and no more she mimics thy voice. And in sorrow for thy fall the 
trees cast down their fruit, and all the flowers have faded." 

260 197. 'AxcJj 5' kv Trerprjcnv odvperai 6ttl (XLUiry 

KOVKeTL flLfJietTaL to. (TO. x^^^^'^- 

Efit. Bionis, 1. 30. 

261 133. The nymph Echo, according to Greek story, loved Nar- 
cissus, who was enamored of his own image reflected in the water ; so 
that Echo pined away until she became a voice only. 

261 140-4. The poet passes from the conception of Hyacinth and 
Narcissus as persons, to the conception of them as flowers; it is as 
flowers that they mourn for Adonais. 

261 151-3. An allusion to the reviewer whose harsh criticism was 
supposed to have shortened Keats's life. 



NOTES. 367 

261 154-189. The thought of nature, upon which he has been dwell- 
ing, turns the writer's mind to that which spring is effecting about him, 
and to the contrast which the revival of nature presents with the 
finality of death in the individual man. 

Cf. Epit. Bionis, 11. 1 06-1 11 : 

am? Tol jxaKdxo-i- f^^f iirav Kara Kairov oXojvTai 
Tjde TO, x^wpo. (T^Xiva to t evdaXes ovXov avrjOof, 
vcrrepov av ^doovraL /cat els eros aXXo (p6ovTai 
afx/J-es d' oi fxeydXoL Kal Kaprepoi, oi ao(pol av^pes, 
OTrwoTe ■Kpdra ddvojfies dvaKOOL ii> x^o''^ KoiXg, 
e'vSofjLes ed p-dXa jxaKpov drepfxova vrjypeTOP virvov, 

thus translated by Lang : " Ah me ! when the mallows wither in the 
garden, and the green parsley an^ the curled tendrils of the anise, on 
a later day they live again, and spring in another year ; but we men, 
we the great and mighty or wise, when once we have died, in hollow 
earth we sleep, gone down into silence ; a right long, and endless, and 
unawakening sleep." 

262 179. sightless: invisible; ci. Alastor, 610. 

262 186. who lends, etc. : i.e., the living spirit animates that which 
belongs to death {e.g., the soul animates the body) that which can only 
be used temporarily, and must return to death again. 

262 188. urge : follow closely upon ; cf. urget diem nox et dies 
noctem (Horace, Epodes, XVII, 25). 

263 190-225. Urania hastens to Rome to lament over the dead body. 
263 195. their sister's song : the song of the Echo, mentioned in 

1.15. 

263 208-216. Cf. Shelley's translation of the elegy on Adonis : 

Aphrodite 
With hair unbound is wandering through the woods, 
Wildered, ungirt, unsandalled — the thorns pierce 
Her hastening feet and drink her sacred blood. 

263 211-212. Cf. Virgil, Eel., X, 48-49: 

Ah ! te ne frigora laedant ! 
Ah, tibi ne teneras glacies secet aspera plantas. 

264 227. A translation of Epit. Adon., 1. 42 : 

TOGOvrbv ixe cpiXrjaov, 6<top fwei rb (f>iXr)fJ.a. 

264 228. heartless : not in the ordinary sense ; applied here because 
her heart has been given to Adonais. 



368 NOTES. 

264 235-261. These lines refer to the reviewer, and are an adaptation 
of a passage in the Elegy on Adonis : " For why, ah overbold ! didst 
thou follow the chase, and, being so fair, why wert thou thus over- 
hardy to fight with beasts ? " 

264 238. unpastured : unfed ; cf. Ai.neid, XII, 876 : impastus leo. 

264 240. Wisdom the mirrored shield: in stories of romance the 
polished shield is sometimes represented as dazzling the adversary in 
battle. 

264 241-2. Until his genius had become fully matured. 

265 245. obscene : in the classical sense, ' foul,' ' loathsome.' 

265 249-251. The reference is to Byron, who, when his early verses 
were severely criticised in the Edmbnrgh Review, retaliated in«a success- 
ful satire, English Bards and Scotch Reviewe7-s. 

Shelley has the Apollo Belvedere in mind ; in this statue Apollo, 
according to one theory, is represented as having just discharged an 
arrow at the Python. 

265 262-315. The fellow shepherds of Adonais ; i.e., poets contem- 
porary with Keats are represented as mourning his death. 

265 264. The Pilgrim of Eternity : Byron ; Pilgrim is suggested by 
Childe Harold ; Eternity, a complimentary suggestion of the perma- 
nence of Byron's fame. 

265 268. lerne : Ireland. 

265 269-270. Thomas Moore is meant. The special reference in 
** her saddest wrong " is not apparent. 

The deep grief of Byron and Moore existed in the imagination of the 
poet only. 

266 271. one frail Form: Shelley. The portrait of himself is note- 
worthy ; observe the resemblance to the hero of Alastor. 

266 275. Actaeon saw Diana bathing, and was, in consequence, pur- 
sued and torn to pieces by his own hounds. So Shelley has penetrated 
too deeply into the mysteries of the universe ; the thoughts to which 
his insight gives rise, torment him and separate him from the interests 
of ordinary life. 

266 289-290. Cf. St. iii. Remembrance (p. 277), with note thereon. 

266 291-2. This description is suggested by the equipment of a 
follower of Dionysus ; see Euripides, Bacchce, 1. 80 : 

ava Ovpaov re Tivdacriav Kicra-w re crrecpavojdeh 
Ai6vv(Tov depaireiei. 

267 298. partial : because, as is made clear in 1. 300, Keats's lot 
resembled his own. 



NOTES. 369 

267 301. accents of an unknown land : this refers, probably, to the 
fact that Shelley's poetry gives expression to feelings and ideas remote 
from the understanding and sympathy of men in general. Mr. Rossetti 
suggests that the reference is to the poet's following a Greek model in 
the English tongue. 

267 312. He : Leigh Hunt. The friendship between Keats and 
Hunt was much closer than that which connected him with the other 
poets mentioned. 

267 316-333. The poet turns again to the reviewer. The passage is 
suggested by the lines from Moschus quoted at the beginning of the 
Preface (p. 254). 

268 322,. The heaviest punishment is to live thy degraded life, and 
to be conscious of the degraded life which thou livest. 

268 334-396. In sts. xviii-xxii is the first reference in the poem to 
the import of death ; there the poet went no further than a suggestion, 
' Naught we know dies, shall the spirit of man alone utterly perish ? ' 
(11. 177-180). Here the poet returns to the subject in a more positive 
mood ; the spirit of Adonais is reunited to the one eternal spirit which 
animates and beautifies the universe. 

268 343. There is a similar transition in Lycidas, 165: 

Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more, 
For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead. 

268 343-351. Similar ideas are to be found in the four closing stanzas 
of The Sensitive Plant. Mr. Rossetti also quotes from Plato's Phcedo : 
" Death is merely the separation of soul and body. And this is the 
very consummation at which philosophy aims : the body hinders 
thought, — the mind attains truth by retiring into herself. Through no 
bodily sense does she perceive justice, beauty, goodness, and other ideas. 
The philosopher has a livelong quarrel with bodily desires, and he should 
welcome the release of his soul." 

269 370-8. Cf. /« Memoriam, xlvi. 

.^273 379-387. Here Shelley conceives the universe as dualistic, matter 
and spirit : matter retards and is the source of imperfection and evil ; 
spirit gradually shapes it to higher ends. 

270 397-414. Those who, like Keats, have died before attaining the 
full meed of glory welcome him to the eternal world : Chatterton, the 
poet, who in his eighteenth year (1770) committed suicide ; Sir Philip 
Sidney, poet, critic, and statesman, who in his thirty-third year died 
heroically on the field of Zutphen (1586); Lucan, the author of the 
epic poem Pharsalia, who, condemned by Nero for conspiracy, antici- 



37° NOTES. 

pated execution by a voluntary death, 65 A.D., when about twenty-six 
years old. 

271 412. blind : dark ; cf. the similar use of the Latin caecus. 

271 415-424. This obscure stanza bids the mourner consider the 
universe in all its vastness, and then he will be able to measure the 
insignificance of himself or of any other single individual. He will thus 
attain to a proper frame of mind ; for at first, when he is drawn on by 
the hope of immortality, to gaze from the brink of this earthly life over 
eternal existence, he may find it difficult to submit with resignation to 
the absorption of his own individuality into the Eternal Spirit. 

The image of the material universe before the poet's mind in this 
stanza seems to be that of the older astronomy, adopted in Paradise 
Lost : the earth hanging in the centre surrounded by sphere after sphere, 
in each of which is fixed one of the heavenly bodies. 

217 424-459. The poet turns to the earthly surroundings of the dead 
body. 

217 424-5. It is only the body that is buried; but it was through 
this body that the spirit of Keats became known to us; thus the body 
may be said to have been the source of the joy which we felt in him. 

272 435-7. The description of the Baths of Caracalla by Shelley, 
quoted pp. Ixiv-v of the Introduction, illustrates these lines. 

272 4.39-450. Description of the Protestant burial ground at Rome 
where Keats (and now Shelley) lies. Shelley speaks of it in a letter of 
December 22, 18 18: "The English burying-place is a green slope near 
the walls, under the pyramidal tomb of Cestius, and is, I think, the most 
beautiful and solemn cemetery I ever beheld. To see the sun shining 
on its bright grass, fresh, w^hen we visited it, with autumnal dews, and 
hear the whispering of the wind among the leaves of the trees which 
have overgrown the tomb of Cestius, and the soil which is stirring in 
the sun-warm earth, and to mark the tombs, mostly of women and 
young people, who were buried there, one might, if one were to die, 
desire the sleep they seem to sleep." 

272 444-7. The pyramid of Cestius, an ancient tomb referred to in 
the last note. 

272 451-7. Shelley had doubtless in mind, while writing these lines, 
his beloved child William, who was buried in this cemetery (see Intro- 
duction, p. Ixv). 

272 453-5. If the grief of any mourning heart has been healed by 
time, do not seek to revive it. 

273 460-5. Plato, in order to account for our knowledge of general 
conceptions and abstract ideas, supposes that these have a real exist- 



NOTES. 371 

ence in another world from which our spirits come at birth. Of these 
general forms (or " ideas," as Plato calls them) the actual things of this 
world are imperfect representations, which, however, serve to awaken 
in the soul of man a ' reminiscence ' of the perfect types which it knew 
before birth. To this theory of Plato, Shelley was attracted by his 
intense dissatisfaction with all earthly things and by his love of the 
mysterious. In the stanza before us he supposes that the spirit of man 
at death enters into the world of ' ideas,' and there contemplates the 
perfect types of which the various concrete manifestations in this world 
give partial and unsatisfactory representations. When Shelley beheld 
anything beautiful, notwithstanding the pleasure it afforded, there was 
a sense of imperfection, a yearning for more complete satisfaction. He 
longed for a world " where music and moonlight and feeling are one." 
This perfect type, or ' idea,' is like the white light which combines in 
one impression the effects of all the colored lights. 

273 466-8. Rome's azure sky, ruins, statues, music, words, — each of 
these may give some impression of that beauty in which all things work 
and move, but the perfection of absolute beauty cannot be expressed by 
these ; we must pass from this unsatisfactory world of shows into the 
world of reality beyond death, if we would enjoy beauty in its entirety. 
273 469-477. Here and elsewhere Shelley yearns for death as open- 
ing the way to the world of the ideal (cf. Alastor, 211-222, and Intro- 
duction, p. Ixii). 

273 480-1. Cf. these lines with the idea in Wordsworth's Ode on 
Intimations of Immortality, that birth shuts off the spirit from the full 
presence of the divine. 

274 487-495. The poet, rapt above all earthly things, feels the influ- 
ence of the Spirit of which he has been speaking. 

274 494. Cf. the motto on the title-page of this poern. Like Hes- 
perus, the star of Adonais has sunk on this earth only to rise again ; cf. 
also In Memoriam, cxxi. 



SONNET: POLITICAL GREATNESS. 

In the Harvard MS. entitled Sonnet to the Republic of Betievento. 

27"^^ 8. obscene: foul, ugly; cf. Adonais, 1. 245. 

274 9-10. If men allow themselves to be controlled by force or cus- 
tom, they are utterly unmanly. Cf. the concluding lines of this sonnet 
with Prometheus, III, iv, 193 ff. 



372 NOTES. 



THE AZIOLA. 

Published in The Keepsake for 1829 with the text as here printed. 

Aziola : Italian name for a species of owl. 

275 4. In Mrs. Shelley's collected editions " the " is introduced 
before stars. 

275 9. or : " and " in Mrs. Shelley's collected editions. 

275 19. The reading in the text is that of the poem as published in 
The Keepsake. Mrs. Shelley's collected editions read they for " them. ' 
" Mr. Garnett suggests that them should be inserted after unlike, — a 
very tempting emendation, for which I should be glad to find authority " 
(Forman's note). 



A LAMENT. 

First published in Posthumous Poems, 1824. 

275 3. Trembling as I look back upon what I have passed through, 
as the climber trembles when he gazes upon the precipices which he has 
surmounted. 

276 8. Mr. Rossetti inserts aHtu?n7i after "summer " in this line, — 
to the ordinary mind a somewhat plausible suggestion as completing 
both sense and metre ; yet Mr. Swinburne says : " If there is one verse 
in Shelley or in English of more divine and sovereign sweetness than 
any other, it is that in the ' Lament ' — ' Fresh spring, and summer, and 
winter hoar.' The music of this line taken with the context — the 
melodious effect of its exquisite inequality — I should have thought 
was a thing to thrill the veins and draw tears to the eyes of all men 
whose ears are not closed against all harmony by some denser and less 
removable obstruction than shut out the song of the Sirens from the 
hearing of the crew of Ulysses. Yet in this edition the word 'autumn' 
is actually foisted in after the word ' summer.' Upon this incredible 
outrage I really dare not trust myself to comment. ... A thousand 
years of purgatorial fire would be insufficient expiation for the criminal 
on whose deaf and desperate head must rest the original guilt of defac- 
ing the text of Shelley with this damnable corruption." 



NOTES. 373 



REMEMBRANCE. 

Mr. Rossetti states that this song was sent to Mrs. Williams with the 
following : " Dear Jane, if this melancholy old song suits any of your 
tunes, or any that humour of the moment may dictate, you are welcome 
to it. Do not say it is mine to any one, even if you think so ; indeed, it 
is from the torn leaf of a book out of date. How are you to-day, and 
how is Williams ? Tell him that I dreamed of nothing but sailing and 
fishing up coral. Your ever affectionate, P. B. S." 

There are at least three versions of this poem, doubtless representing 
various stages of the poet's work, viz. : as printed in the Posthtimous 
Poems, as contained in a MS. belonging to Trelawny, as existing in 
Shelley's handwriting on a fly leaf in a copy of Adonais which belonged 
to Lord Houghton. The latter is followed in our text. 

276 2-3. In Trelawny's version these two lines were transposed. 

276 5-7. Houghton MS. The other versions read : 

As the earth when leaves are dead, 
As the night when sleep is sped, 
As the heart when joy is fled. 

276 8. The Trelawny version has alone, alone. 

276 10. Houghton MS. The other authorities \v'3,v& her for "his." 

276 13. The Trelawny version has to-day for " each day." 

277 24. The Trelawny version has Sadder Jlotvcrs find for me. 
Pansies : referring to the significance of the flower ; the name is 

derived from French pensee, thought ; cf. Hamlet, IV, 5 : " There 's 
pansies, that 's for thoughts." 



BRIDAL SONG. 

This song is here printed as it appeared in Posthumous Poems. 
Med win, in his Life of Shelley, gives another version written as a chorus 
for a drama by Edward Williams, and a third version is furnished by 
Williams's MS. of his play. These two versions, which differ in their 
form from the poem printed in the text, may be found in the complete 
editions. 



374 NOTES. 



SONG FROM "HELLAS." 

Hellas is a lyrical drama inspired by the proclamation of Greek inde- 
pendence in 1821, and written towards the close of that year. It 
describes, by anticipation, the fall of the Turkish Empire and the triumph 
of Greece. 

This extract begins at 1. 34 of the drama, and in the original the first 
and third portions are assigned to Semi-chorus I, the second to Semi- 
chorus IL 



CHORUS FROM "HELLAS." 

The extract contains 11. 1031-49 of the drama. 

This Chorus, as well as in the Final Chorus which follows, anticipates 
the universal " Golden Age " upon earth, of which the Greek revolution 
is but a prelude. 



FINAL CHORUS FROM "HELLAS." 

" The final chorus is indistinct and obscure, as the events of the 
living drama whose arrival it foretells. Prophecies of wars and rumors 
of wars, etc., may be safely made by poet or prophet in any age, but to 
anticipate, however darkly, a period of regeneration and happiness is a 
more hazardous exercise of the faculty which bards possess or feign. 
It will remind the reader ' magno nee proximus intervallo ' of Isaiah and 
Virgil, whose ardent spirits, overleaping the actual reign of evil which 
we endure and bewail, already saw the possible and perhaps approach- 
ing state of society in which ' the lion shall lie down with the lamb ' 
and * omnis feret omnia tellus.' Let these great names be my authority 
and excuse " (Shelley's note). The reference in the case of Virgil is, of 
course, to the famous " Pollio " eclogue, imitated by Pope in his Messiah. 

281 1. The world's great age : the annus mag )ius oi the ancients, 
at the end of which the sun, moon, and planets return to their original 
relative position (see Plato, Timceus, 39 ; Cicero, De Nat. Deoruni, 2, 
20). With the astronomical conception was connected the idea that 
the history of the world would recommence and repeat itself. 

281 9. Peneus : a river in Thessaly. 

281 10. Tempo : the beautiful valley through which the Peneus flows. 



A'OTES. 375 

281 12. Cyclads : the Cyclades, a group of islands in the ^Egean. 

281 13. Argo : the vessel in which Jason sailed in search of the 
Golden Fleece. 

282 18. Calypso : the nymph of the island of Ogygia, with whom 
Ulysses would not remain, though she promised him the gift of immor- 
tality. 

282 19-24. In the previous stanzas the poet has been imagining 
various events which according to Greek tradition happened in earlier 
ages as repeating themselves when the "great age begins anew"; but, 
the story of Troy coming to his mind, he recoils at the thought that the 
horrors of war and of crime should be renewed, even although he admits 
that death will not be abolished (see Prometheus, III, iii, 105 ff). 

282 21. Laian. Laius, king of Thebes, learned from the oracle that 
he was destined to perish at the hands of his son, who should also wed 
his own mother, Jocasta. To avoid such horrors, this son, CEdipus, was 
exposed immediately after birth ; was found, however, by a shepherd, 
and ultimately adopted by the king of Corinth. CEdipus, on arriving 
at maturity, learned at Delphi the fate that was in store for him, and, 
ignorant of his true parentage, thought to shun it by leaving Corinth. 
He turned his steps to Thebes, met his true father, and slew him in a 
scuffle. Meanw^hile Thebes was afflicted by the presence of a monster, 
the Sphinx, who, sitting by the roadside, proposed a riddle to each 
passer-by, and, on his failing to solve it, slew him. In their distress, the 
Thebans promised the kingdom and the hand of Queen Jocasta to him 
who should rid them of this plague. CEdipus solved the riddle and 
received the reward. The gods visited these unwitting crimes with a 
series of dire calamities, which afforded a favorite source of material to 
the Greek tragedians. 

282 31-33. " Saturn and Love were among the deities of a real or 
imaginary state of innocence and happiness. All those who fell, or the 
Gods of Greece, Asia, and Egypt; the One who rose, or Jesus Christ, at 
whose appearance the idols of the Pagan World were amerced of their 
worship ; and the many unsubdued, or the monstrous objects of the 
idolatry of China, India, the Antarctic islands, and the native tribes of 
America, certainly have reigned over the understandings of men, in con- 
junction or in succession, during periods in which all we know of evil 
has been in a state of portentous, and, until the revival of learning and 
arts, perpetually increasing activity " (Shelley's note). 

282 37-42. According to the idea connected with " the world's great 
age," the whole of history repeats itself, so that not only the ' Golden 
Age ' returns, but this must be followed by ages of degradation and 



376 NOTES. 

evil. Hence the cry of the poetic seer. The stanza is also character- 
istic of Shelley's temperament. His periods of intense hopefulness and 
exaltation were liable to be followed by moods of depression. He 
seemed often to feel the unreality and unattainableness of those dreams 
of regeneration in which at other times he fondly indulged. 



TO EDWARD WILLIAMS. 

This poem, in the MS. which Trelawny possessed, is accompanied 
by the following note : " My dear Williams, — Looking over the port- 
folio in which my friend used to keep his verses, and in which those I 
sent you the other day were found, I have lit upon these ; which, as 
they are too dismal for me to keep, I send you. If any of the stanzas 
should please you, you may read them to Jane, but to no one else. 
And yet, on second thoughts, I had rather you would not. Yours ever 
affectionately, P. B. S." 

The occasion of the lines, as we gather from the poem itself, was 
some jealousy of Mrs. Williams on the part of Mary, which put a check 
to the freedom of intercourse between the two families. According to 
Trelawny, Mary w^as prone to jealousy. With the feeling expressed in 
the poem we may compare the following extract from one of Shelley's 
letters to Mrs. Gisborne, dated June i8, 1822 (quoted in Dowden's 
Life, Vol. II, p. 472) : "As to me, Italy is more and more delightful to 
me. ... I only feel the want of those who can feel, and understand 
me. Whether from proximity and the continuity of domestic inter- 
course, Mary does not. The necessity of concealing from her thoughts 
that would pain her, necessitates this, perhaps. It is the curse of Tan- 
talus that a person possessing such excellent powers and so pure a 
mind as hers, should not excite the sympathy indispensable to their 
application to domestic life." 

283 1. Byron named Shelley 'the Snake'; "his bright eyes, slim 
figure, and noiseless movements strengthening, if they did not suggest, 
the comparison " (Trelawny's Records, p. 85). 

284 41-43. Cf. Alastor, 11. 280 ff . 

284 43. When: whence is the reading of Mrs. Shelley's fir^t 
edition, but whe7t of her second and of the Trelawny MS. 



NOTES. S77 

SONG ("A widow bird sat mourning for her love "). 

This song was printed as it stands in the text in the Posthtivious 
Poems. Mr. Rossetti discovered the same poem in a fragmentary scene 
of Shelley's incomplete drama, Charles the First, where it is put into 
the mouth of Archy, the Court Fool, with the following introductory 
stanza prefixed : 

Heighho ! the lark and the owl ! 

One flies the morning, and one lulls the night : — 
Only the nightingale, poor fond soul, 

Sings Hke the fool through darkness and light. 



THE MAGNETIC LADY TO HER PATIENT. 

"The Magnetic Lady" is doubtless Mrs. Williams; a copy of the 
poem in Shelley's writing among the Trelawny MS. is headed, " For 
Jane and Williams only to see." According to Medwin, Shelley was 
hypnotized by Mrs. Williams, by Mrs. Shelley, and by Medwin himself 
to relieve him from paroxysms of pain to which he was subject. In 
one of these trances he gave the answer to Medwin recorded in the 
forty-second line of this poem. 

285 11. he: Williams. 

286 42. The reading in the text is that of the Trelawny MS. As 
given by Mrs. Shelley and by Medwin in his Memoir of Shelley^ the line 

reads : 

'T would kill me wkat would cure my pain. 



LINES (" When the lamp is shattered "). 

This poem as here printed follows Mrs. Shelley's text ;' there is an 
autograph copy among the Trelawny MS. which has notes for "tones" 
in 1. 6, in for " through " in 1. 14, and chose for "choose " in 1. 23. 

287 17-24. The weaker heart is the more faithful, and retains its 
love, though love has turned to pain because the loved one has grown 
cold. 

287 25. Its : the weaker heart's. 

thee: Love. 



378 NOTES. 



TO JANE — THE INVITATION. 

" A part of this and a part of the next poem were published by Mrs. 
Shelley in the Posthumous Poems (1824) as one composition, under the 
title of The Pine Forest of the Cascine near Pisa, and this arrangement 
was followed in the first edition of 1839; but in the second edition of 
that year the poem was divided into two as in the text, and given in 
substantial accordance with the autograph in Mr. Trelawny's hands " 
(Forman's note). There are considerable variations between the earlier 
and later forms, for which the reader is referred to the collected editions. 

289 43-45. There is confusion between " thy " and " your." 

290 58. The daisy-star, etc. : cf . The Question, 1. 1 1 and note. 



TO JANE — THE RECOLLECTION. 

290 6. fled : so in the earlier edition and the later collected edi- 
tions ; but the second edition of 1S39 and the Trelawny MS. have dead. 

291 24. This line reads in the earlier version : With stems like ser- 
pents interlaced; with this text, the "as rude" of the previous line 
might be interpreted either as rude as giants or as rude as stoi'ms. It 
might seem as if Shelley, on revising the poem, had mended the halting 
metre without noting that the change involved an inappropriate com- 
parison : " serpents interlaced " can scarcely be called " rude." 

291 42. white stands in the Trelawny MS. and in the earlier ver- 
sion ; but in the second edition of 1839 wide is found. "White "is 
evidently the better reading ; the mountains were on the horizon, and 
the width of the mountain waste would not be apparent. 

292 52. After this line in the earlier version stood : 

Were not the crocuses that grew 

Under the ilex tree, 
As beautiful for scent and hue 

As ever fed the bee ? 

292 53-80. Note Shelley's delight in the reflections in the water ; 
the reflection, with its softened outlines and mysterious suggestiveness, 
is a sort of idealization of the real scene. 



NOTES. 379 



WITH A GUITAR TO JANE. 

" The strong light streamed through an opening of the trees. One 
of the pines, undermined by the water, had fallen into it. Under its 
lee, and nearly hidden, sat the Poet, gazing on the dark mirror beneath, 
so lost in his bardish revery that he did not hear my approach. . . . 
The day I found Shelley in the pine-forest he was WTiting verses on a 
guitar. I picked up a fragment but could not make out the first two 
lines. ... It was a frightful scrawl ; words smeared over with his 
finger, and one upon the other, over and over in tiers, and all run 
together 'in most admired disorder'" (Trelawny, Records, I, pp. 103, 
107). 

Shelley's identification of himself with Shakespeare's infinitely poetical 
and spritelike Ariel, now imprisoned in a body, is a very happy and sug- 
gestive fancy. 

294 23-24. See note on Pyojnetheiis, II, iv, 91. 



LINES WRITTEN IN THE BAY OF LERICI. 

The Bay of Lerici is a portion of the Bay of Spezzia, upon which 
Casa Magni, where Shelley was residing at the time of his death, was 
situated. 



SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



Text. — The best critical edition of Shelley's complete works 
is that by H. B. Forman in eight volumes (four of poetry and 
four of prose), London, 1880. Mr. Forman has also published 
a popular edition of the poetical works, without notes, in Bell's 
Aldine Series^ five volumes. A useful and excellent critical edi- 
tion of the poetical works is that of Prof. G. E. Woodberry in 
four volumes, Boston and New York, 1892. Mr. W. M. Rossetti's 
edition, London, 1881, contains in three volumes a revised text, 
notes, and memoir. The most convenient edition of the com- 
plete poetical works for the ordinary reader is that by Professor 
Dowden in one volume. 

The chief sources for the text are (i) the various existing 
MSS. in the poet's handwriting or in that of his wife ; the bulk 
of these are among the family papers at Boscombe Manor, but 
there is also a valuable collection at Harvard ; (2) the various 
volumes printed in Shelley's lifetime (several of these have been 
reprinted in the Shelley Society's Pi(blications), and for some of 
the shorter poems, the pages of the Examiner^ Keepsake^ and 
other periodicals to which the poet occasionally contributed ; (3) 
Mrs. Shelley's editions of her husband's works, viz.^ Posthumous 
Poe?}is, 1824, and her editions of the collected poetical works, two 
of which appeared in 1839, ^^^ ^ third in 1841. Relics of Shelley^ 
edited by Dr. Garnett, London, 1862, affords poetical matter 
which had not hitherto been printed. 

For an account of these various earlier publications of Shelley's 
works, TJie Shelley Library, an Essay in Bibliography, l)y H. B. 
Forman (^Shelley Society's Publications) should be consulted. 



382 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Biography. — The most comprehensive and authoritative life 
of Shelley is that by Professor Dowden in two volumes, London, 
1886. Among the shorter biographies may be mentioned those 
by W. M. Rossetti {Shelley Societys Publications)., by J. A. 
Symonds {English Men of Letters Series)., and by Wm. Sharp 
{Great Writers Series). J. Cordy Jeaffreson's The Real Shelley, 
in two volumes, presents the view of the Advocates Diabolij it 
is one-sided and digressive, but acute and, as a corrective, some- 
times useful. 

Among the more important original sources generally accessible, 
besides Shelley's own letters, etc., are the notes in Mrs. Shelley's 
editions, the life by Shelley's friend Hogg (which does not cover 
his later years), an account of the last months of the poet's life 
by Trelawny in his Records of Shelley, Byron, and the Author 
(these accounts by Hogg and Trelawny based on personal 
knowledge are specially vivid and interesting), and the Memo- 
rials of Shelley in Peacock's collected works. 

Miscellaneous. — Among the numerous critical essays may 
be mentioned those by Stopford A. Brooke (being his introduc- 
tion to his Poems of Shelley), Walter Bagehot {Literary Studies), 
R. H. Hutton {Literary Essays), W. H. Myers {Ward's English 
Poets), Professor Baynes {Editiburgh Review, Vol. CXXXIII), 
Leslie Stephen {Hours in a Library). 

The Shelley Society's Publications include A Shelley Concord- 
ance by F. S. Ellis, a Shelley Primer by H. S. Salt, an essay on 
the P7'07netheus by W. M. Rossetti, and various other essays, 
notes, etc., on matters pertaining to Shelley. A volume of selec- 
tions from his letters edited by Dr. Garnett is in the Parchment 
Libraiyj from his essays and letters, in the Ca^nelot Classics. 
A Study of Shelley by J. Todhunter gives an extended examina- 
tion of his works. Annotated editions of the Prometheus by 
Miss Vida D. Scudder ; of the Adonais by W. M. Rossetti 
{Clarendon Press), and by Professor Hales {Longer English 
Poems) ; of the Alastor, with translation into French prose, by 
Al. Beljame (Hachette, Paris) ; of the Essay on Poetry by Pro- 
fessor Cook. For sources and parallel passages, Dr. Richard 



SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY. 383 

Ackermann's Qzielleti, Vorbilder, Stoffe zji Shelley's Poetischen 
Werken (viz., Alastor, Epipsychidioti, Adonais, Hellas'), Er- 
langen and Leipzig, 1890, and the same author's article on the 
Pro7netheus in E^iglische Stiidieji, Band XVI, may be consulted. 
A bibliography is appended to Shelley in the Great Writers 
Series. 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 



A glorious people vibrated again, 

185. 
A Sensitive Plant in a garden 

grewr, 167. 
An old, mad, blind, despised, and 

dying king, 158. 
Arethusa arose, 195. 
Ariel to Miranda. — Take, 293. 
Art thou pale for weariness, 220. 

Best and brightest, come away, 2S8. 

Do you not hear the Aziola cry, 
275- 

Earth, ocean, air, beloved brother- 
hood, 3. 
Echoes we : listen, 95. 

From the ends of the earth, from 
the ends of the earth, 75. 

From the forests and highlands, 
202. 

From unremembered ages we, 83. 

Good night .-* ah ! no ; the hour is 
ill, 219. 

Ha ! Ha ! the caverns of my hol- 
low mountains, 148. 

Hail to thee, blithe spirit, 181. 

Her voice did quiver as we parted, 
30- 



I arise from dreams of thee, 163. 
I bring fresh showers for the 

thirsting flowers, 179. 
I dreamed that, as I wandered by 

the way, 198. 
I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden, 

198. 
I met a traveller from an antique 

land, 31. 
I stood within the city disinterred, 

213. 
I weep for Adonais — he is dead, 

256. 
If I walk in Autumn's even, 277. 
It interpenetrates my granite mass, 

149. 

Life may change, but it may fly 

not, 280. 
Life of Life, thy lips enkindle, 114. 
Lift not the painted veil which 

those who live, 44. 
Like the ghost of a dear friend 

dead, 221. 
Listen, listen, Mary mine, 32. 

Madonna, wherefore hast thou 

sent to me, 226. 
Many a green isle needs must be, 

33- 
Men of England, wherefore plough, 
158. 



386 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 



Monarch of Gods and Demons, 
and all Spirits, 54. 

Music, when soft voices die, 248. 

My coursers are fed with the light- 
ning, 1 1 2. 

My faint spirit was sitting in the 
light, 225. 

My soul is an enchanted boat, 1 1 5. 

Nor happiness, nor majesty, nor 

fame, 274. 
Now the last day of many days, 

290. 

O, wild West Wind, thou breath 
of Autumn's being, 160. 

Oh, world! oh, life! oh, time, 275. 

On a battle-trumpet's blast, 83. 

On a poet's lips I slept, 85. 

On the brink of the night and the 
morning, 112. 

One came forth of gentle worth, 

n- 

One word is too often profaned, 

278. 
Orphan hours, the year is dead, 

222. 
Our spoil is won, 141. 

Palace-roof of cloudless nights, 

165. 
Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to 

know, 27. 

Rarely, rarely, comest thou, 249. 
Rough wind, that moanest loud, 
300. 

Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth, 

200. 
She left me at the silent time, 297. 



Sleep, sleep on I forget thy pain, 

285. 
Sweet Spirit ! Sister of that orphan 

one, 230. 
Swifter far than summer's flight, 

276. 
Swiftly walk o'er the western wave, 

223. 

Tell me, thou star, whose wings of 

light, 220. 
That time is dead for ever, child, 

31- 
The awful shadow of some unseen 

Power, 27. 
The cold earth slept below, 26. 
The flower that smiles to-day, 

251. 
The Fountains mingle with the 

River, 165. 
The golden gates of Sleep unbar, 

279. 
The keen stars were twinkling, 

296. 
The odour from the flower is gone, 

45- 

The pale stars are gone, 135. 

The path through which that 
lovely twain, 97. 

The serpent is shut out from para- 
dise, 2S3. 

The sleepless Hours who watch 
me as I lie, 200. 

The snow upon my lifeless moun- 
tains, 149. 

The spider spreads her webs, 
whether she be, 203. 

The sun is warm, the sky is clear, 
46. 

The wind has swept from the wide 
atmosphere, 25. 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 



387 



The world's great age begins 

anew, 281. 
The young moon has fed, 2S0. 
These are two friends whose lives 

were undivided, 300. 
This is the day which down the 

void abysm, 157. 
Thou art fair, and few are fairer, 

164. 
Thou art speeding round the sun, 

152. 
To the deep, to the deep, 103. 

Unfathomable Sea ! whose waves 
are years, 223. 



We come from the mind, 139. 

We meet not as we parted, 299. 

Weave the dance on the floor of 
the breeze, 138. 

When passion's trance is overpast, 
278. 

When the lamp is shattered, 
2S7. 

Where art thou, beloved To-mor- 
row, 277. 

Wilt thou forget the happy hours, 
32- 

Ye hasten to the grave! What 
seek ye there, 221. 






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